Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton started the season as the hot favourite to beat his rival Sebastian Vettel to the achievement, but the Ferrari driver now has a 17-point lead after victories in the first two races of the season.
Vettel's win in Bahrain on Sunday demonstrated both the size of the task facing Hamilton and the incredibly high level of competition at the front of the field between these two all-time greats.
Hamilton was pleased to rescue a podium finish in third place from a race he started ninth, survived a collision with Red Bull's Max Verstappen and pulled off a spectacular overtaking move that saw him pass three cars in almost one manoeuvre.
But the 49th victory of Vettel's career was right up there with the very best he has ever achieved, a masterclass in control and calm under intense pressure brought about by a cunning attempt by Mercedes' strategists to overcome what, at least before the race, appeared to be a faster car.
Vettel looked in complete control of the race until Mercedes put his pursuer Valtteri Bottas on the same one-stop strategy as Hamilton. It was a devilishly clever move and it left Ferrari with an agonising decision. Stick to their plan of a two-stop or try to make the tyres last?
Pit again, and Vettel would have to pass both Mercedes out on track. Stay out and
Gary Harris Authentic Jersey he would be asking 'soft'-compound tyres to do 39 laps - 30% longer than the recommended
Detlef Schrempf Authentic Jersey maximum life.Vettel said: "By them going on to the medium, I thought: 'That's checkmate.' Because [at that point] we had to come in again. It was a great strategy and put us under a lot of pressure."
Ferrari said they were always open to the idea of keeping Vettel out, but the unlikelihood of it working can be judged by the fact that it was their
http://www.footballredskinsprostore.com/Kendall_Fuller_Jersey_Cheap 'plan D' - their fourth-best pre-race strategy.Vettel made his first and only stop on lap 18 and fitted soft tyres that were expected to last only 30 laps. There were 39 to go.
On softer tyres, he should have been much faster than Bottas behind him on mediums, but the pace differential was not that big and by lap 30 there was nothing to choose between them on lap time.Ferrari kept their options open as long as they could, but the final turning point was team-mate Kimi Raikkonen's second stop from
http://www.officialmlbonlineshop.com/t-shirts-houston-astros third place on lap 35, when something went badly wrong.
The left rear was stuck. Raikkonen was given the 'go' signal before the wheel had even been taken off. He bowled over a mechanic, who suffered a nasty leg fracture, and was forced to stop in the pit lane.
That meant the pit lane was out of use for Ferrari for a key period of time, by which point the opportunity to pit Vettel and give him sufficient time to have a realistic chance of chasing down both Mercedes was effectively gone. He had to make staying out work.
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