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 and Lance Stroll went for used hards.
However, Sainz spun off…
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