BARCELONA, Spain -- When he jumped out of his car to celebrate Mercedes' first one-two victory of the season, Valtteri Bottas looked back at his front tyres to see there was almost no rubber left on the carcass.
After making an early pit stop on lap 19, Bottas then had to make a set of medium compound tyres last 47 laps in order to complete an unlikely one-stop strategy. Ahead of the race no-one thought the medium tyre would go much further than 40 laps, and Bottas had originally set out on a two-stop strategy.
But when Sebastian Vettel was forced to make a second stop due to excessive tyre wear, Bottas had a chance to secure second by going to the end of the race on his medium tyres.