Mercedes was afraid of Verstappen: 'That was our best option at the time'

Mercedes looked to be closing in on Red Bull Racing with a first and third-place finish at the French Grand Prix, but nothing was further from the truth. Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez overtook their rivals to secure a double podium finish for their team.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Andrew Shovlin states that his team were struggling. "We could see the degradation was higher than expected but were wary of the two-stop strategy with Lewis as we'd need to pass Perez who had relatively fresh tyres; once Max made the move our best option was to see if we could just hang on but unfortunately the race was a couple of laps too long for us."

Mercedes wanted to do a double stop with Bottas but were wavering. "We were afraid of the fact that Sergio's tyres were relatively fresh and unsure if we'd have the speed to pass on track." In the end, that proved to be the wrong choice, as Red Bull were the better team in the closing stages of the race.

Verstappen's victory means that the Dutchman is once again further ahead in the world championship. Whereas he had a four-point lead before the race, he now has twelve points more than his rival.