Valtteri Bottas looked like he could pull of a win for Mercedes at Silverstone but ultimately failed to hold his lead as tyre degradation took its toll on the Finn's efforts.
A crash by Sauber's Marcus Ericsson triggered a Safety Car on lap 32 of 52 and while Ferrari opted to bring Sebastian Vettel in, the Mercedes camp kept bot its driver out, with Bottas taking command of the race at that point.
The Finn kept Vettel at bay until the race was neutralized again when Carlos Sainz and Romain Grosjean came together, and again Bottas defended his leading position from Vettel.
His resistance only lasted until lap 47 however, at which point the Silver Arrows driver drifted back to fourth as he battled with his medium compound tyres.
"I felt that there was definitely a possibility to go to the end," Bottas said.
"Obviously, in practice I didn’t do any long runs with the mediums but from our calculations we should have been okay, but it wasn’t."
Mercedes' estimates came up short however, leading Bottas to believe that a pit stop under the first Safety Car was, in hindsight, the way to go.
"Afterwards it is quite easy to say yes we should have pitted. At least to keep the position," he added.
"We took a risk to be first but ended up fourth so just five laps too much."
Bottas admitted however that the pressure applied by Vettel in the closing stages of the race forced him to pull out all the stops, and therefore perhaps shorten his tyres lifespan.
"I was really trying everything I could to stay ahead," he admitted.
"I had to push like qualifying laps to keep ahead and for sure, then the tyres degrade quicker as well so… I tried my best but it was not enough."
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