Toto Wolff says Mercedes nearly "peed their pants" as Daniel Ricciardo slashed away at Nico Rosberg's lead in the final laps of the Singapore Grand Prix.
Rosberg had looked comfortable in the latter part of the race, but a late switch to super-softs by Ricciardo changed everything. The Australian started drastically cutting away at Rosberg's lead, which had been around 25 seconds, eventually crossing the line 0.4s behind the Mercedes.
Mercedes boss Wolff says it was a nervy period on the pit wall.
"Yeah we nearly peed our pants at the end," Wolff told Sky Sports F1 after the race. "It was so close and how it should be in Formula One. Four really quick cars, different strategies and I must really take my hat off to Red Bull as well, they pulled off a great strategy at the end.
"We couldn't do that because we would have lost the lead ... Ricciardo out of the blocks with an amazing pace, it was really exciting at the end."
Ironically the late drama was triggered by Mercedes' decision to bring in Hamilton for tyres in a bid to get him back onto the final spot of the podium, which he did by emerging clear of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen. However, that meant Ricciardo then pitted himself to cover off Raikkonen, leaving Rosberg in no man's land out in front as he would not have been able to emerge in front if he had stopped himself.
"At that moment we concentrated on getting Lewis back to third but equally I think that Ricciardo or Red Bull at that stage thought about pitting him. It was their only chance actually of making it, but you are right, we took Lewis out of the game and Raikkonen out of the game and gave them the possibility."
Rosberg had to been due to pit himself but Wolff says a late call was made to keep the German driver on track after seeing Ricciardo's blistering first lap on the super-soft tyres.
"We lost the gap [needed to emerge in the lead] in that first lap. We were planning to pit and then Daniel put out a stunner and the gap shrank and was gone so we needed to just make it to the end."