How Albon pulled off a strategy miracle in Australian GP

By stretching the life of his starting set of tyres to 57 laps, the Williams driver went from last to 10th place, a gain that even his own team could not have predicted before the race.

Others had the chance to do the same, but chose not to.

Now all teams will no doubt be crunching the numbers and working out if an ultra-late stop with the hard is a viable option with the new generation of 18-inch Pirellis, should circumstances make such a gamble worthwhile.

And a gamble it was.

Albon was stuck at the back of the grid due to exclusion from qualifying for failing to provide a fuel sample, so his team put him on a set of new C2 compound hards for the start.

The idea was to run longer than those on mediums, and then take advantage of any fortuitous circumstances, such as safety cars.

Out of position on the grid, Fernando Alonso and Kevin Magnussen took the same gamble with new hards, while Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz Jr and Lance Stroll went for used hards.

However, Sainz spun off early and triggered a virtual safety car that allowed Stroll to pit, complete a mandatory one lap with mediums, and then pit again for the hards – it was a clever move that potentially opened up the chance to run with no further stops. His team-mate Vettel, meanwhile, crashed out.

The three drivers who started on new hards stayed out and progressed up the order as others on mediums pitted.

"We looked at out race predictions and we looked a bit sad," said Albon. "It was a race where we took risks, because we felt like no matter what we did we were going to finish 19th or 20th.

"We went into the race starting our race, taking a bit of time to build the tyres up into a nice window, and when you start last you can afford to do that."

Alonso,