off

But because Salah stayed high up the pitch when O'Reilly was flying forward, it left Bradley isolated, and with a dilemma - did he commit and stick with Doku, or drop off him and pick up O'Reilly charging forward instead?

At the moment, though, all that feels like it is a long way off.

Brazil was better than Mexico, where he was badly off the pace.

In a way, although the puncture put him to the back again after he had made up six places over the three racing laps that had been possible up to that point in between a real safety car and a virtual one, it did him a favour in that it got him off the hard tyre and on to the favoured medium.

Intense, focused work from driver and team on making him more comfortable slowly began to pay off through the summer and into the autumn, and now he is living up to the status with which he started the season - favourite - but lost in those difficult early races.