Lewis Hamilton was worried his tyres would explode because Pirelli increased the minimum type pressure limit to an unprecedented amount during the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix and Mercedes had major issues.
The Silver Arrows had locked out the front row in qualifying but they got off to a disastrous start.
Max Verstappen, who was fourth on the grid, managed his tyres well to earn a first victory of the season.
The Dutchman took advantage of Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas’ blistering to push at the right moments and hold out once he took the lead.
Hamilton credited the 22-year-old for his performance but raised big concerns over why his team struggled so much.
“It was a massive challenge,” says Hamilton. “Firstly, congratulations to the Red Bull team and to Max. They definitely didn’t have the problems we had today.
“Definitely unexpected to have the blistering as hardcore as we experienced. But I’m really grateful to progress and manage my way through until the end.
“I’m sure the team will be working as hard as they can because we’ve not had that [tyre issues] before.
“Pirelli were struggling with tyre failures last week and then they just kept putting the pressures up and up. They’re balloons now. They’re the highest pressures they have ever had on a track like this.
“I don’t know if anyone struggled with blistering like we had so it’s something we’ll look into.”
“As a team we were sleeping at some point when Max managed to get ahead of us and my strategy was far, far from ideal. Lots to learn from today, I think.”
Verstappen said: “I didn’t see it coming, but after the first stint it seemed like we were really good on tyres.
“Of course there was a question mark how Mercedes were gonna go on the hard tyre. We had a lot of pace in the car and I didn’t really have a lot of tyre issues at all. We just kept pushing.
“An incredible result of course to win here, everything worked out well. I’m incredibly happy.”