Vettel by 6/10 of a second
Published Apr 9, 2018 12:00 am

Ferrari's German driver Sebastian Vettel steers around a corner (Andrej ISAKOVIC / AFP)
SAKHIR, Bahrain (AFP) – Sebastian Vettel said he feared Mercedes had pulled off a tactical "checkmate" move in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix, before he hung on for a nail-biting win by six-tenths of a second.
The four-time world champion, who now leads Lewis Hamilton by 17 points in the embryonic 2018 title race after two events, said he feared Ferrari’s gamble on worn tyres would not pay off.
"Them going onto the medium tyre... I thought that was checkmate as we had to come in again," he said. "That was the original plan, but we diverted again and tried to make them last and to nurse them as much as I could. And it worked, but only just.
"There wasn’t much left! Valtteri (Bottas) had a bit of a sniff, but fortunately he ran out of laps so I am really happy."
As his Ferrari teammate Finn Kimi Raikkonen stuck to his two-stop plan before being forced to retire by a bungled pit-stop that saw a Ferrari mechanic run over, Vettel simply drove on and hoped.