Vettel: I had nothing under control!

Sebastian Vettel admitted he had "nothing under control" as he clung on to take victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Vettel somehow eked out 39 laps on soft tyres to hold off the Mercedes pair of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton.

Vettel was forced to convert a two-stop race into an unlikely one-stopper as Mercedes found good pace on the medium tyres and Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was taken out of the battle by a faulty pitstop.

Bottas caught Vettel by the final lap, but the Finn could not find a way past, despite benefitting from DRS.

Vettel said: "I think I came on the radio with 10 laps to go and said I had everything under control. That was a lie! I had nothing under control.

"When they told me the pace of Valtteri at that time I thought no way I could do that. I was doing the maths in the car and thought he was going to catch me.

"I tried to keep it as clean as possible. Both Mercedes were strong at the end of the first stint and going onto the prime they saw what we did and I thought that was chess made as we have to come in again.

"Then we diverted and I tried to nurse the tyres as much as I could. It worked, but just. Fortunately, Valtteri ran out of laps."

Questions might be asked about Bottas' long-term Mercedes future after he opted against taking an aggressive approach to Vettel.

Although he outperformed team-mate Hamilton across the weekend, Bottas was still unhappy with a return of second place.

He said: "I knew there would be a chance that he would struggle in the end. I was trying to get every lap and corner perfect to catch him but it was just not quite enough.

"Being second with such a close margin and having such good pace at the end is extremely disappointing. We will try to get them next time."