Mercedes driver Hamilton wins Chinese GP from pole

Hamilton’s win in China is his fifth in Shanghai. This did not slow Vettel down, as the Ferrari driver raced ahead and finished just behind Lewis Hamilton in second place.

“What I said to Sebastian as I left the last race???”

“I quite like him up here next to us”, he said. “I think we were a bit unlucky”.

“Really sorry, guys, for the amateur mistake”, said Bottas, who had earlier been called “Nico” over team radio. “Because then when you come out on top, it’s so much more satisfying”. On her tail was Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas with a time difference of 0.87 seconds from Raikkonen, who placed fifth and sixth, respectively.

When an incident between Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez that ultimately put the Williams driver out of the race, caused a Virtual Safety Car period, drivers began pitting for slicks.

His gamble backfired when Antonio Giovinazzi – standing in for Pascal Wehrlein at Sauber – crashed, bringing out the actual safety auto two laps later.

During the safety-car slowdowns to remove both cars from the track, the top drivers pitted to change tires, reshuffling the starting order.

Vettel finally got past Raikkonen, who had complained of vehicle trouble, on lap 20 and two laps later beat Ricciardo with a thrilling move on the outside of turn six.

The analysis however shows that Ferrari is better in warmer conditions while the Mercedes prefers the cold.

The title protagonists have both won one race each this season with the Briton predicting their battle will go down to the wire.

“We still need to work very hard to catch up”, he added. “They are the ones to beat, they have a very strong team, doing very well the last three years being flawless and smashing a lot of records”. This year, as well. It was a good match.

“It’s good to have a younger person around and yeah, Max has obviously done a fantastic job since he’s been in the sport”, he said when asked about Verstappen.

But it was a good day for Hamilton, Vettel probably made the pass of the race with an overtake Ricciardo, which took from turn five to turn six to complete, and Verstappen’s progress from 16th to third was the drive of the day.

“I’m not very happy about it but it’s racing and there’s still many races to go”.

Even though Red Bull is still off the pace of the Mercedes and Ferrari cars, Verstappen believes his team could contend for victories again soon.

The treacherous conditions continued to wreak havoc in the early stages of the race at the Shanghai International Circuit, with two incidents in the opening laps bringing out the safety cars. Bottas was sixth after spinning in the wet behind the safety vehicle, with Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz in seventh, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen in eighth and Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon in ninth and tenth, respectively.

McLaren endured another miserable race as neither Stoffel Vandoorne nor Fernando Alonso finished, and Daniil Kvyat also failed to get his Toro Rosso to the end.