Hamilton roars to victory
Briton wins record 5th title in China
Lewis Hamilton powered to victory in a chaotic Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai on Sunday, taking swift revenge for his defeat by Sebastian Vettel in the Formula One season- opener.
The Briton, who started on pole, steered his Mercedes to the Chinese Grand Prix win, beating Vettel’s Ferrari by just over 6 seconds with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen finishing third after early safety car drama.
“Get in there Lewis!” Hamilton’s engineer said over team radio after the three- time world champion took the checkered flag in China for the third time in the last four years.
“That’s a great race, mate. An absolute master class.”
It was Hamilton’s 54th career win, and a record fifth in Shanghai.
Vettel recovered from a poor start from Row 1 and, after being stuck behind Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen early on, began to show the pace that swept the German to victory in Melbourne two weeks ago.
First Vettel blew past Raikkonen before going wheel- to- wheel with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo at Turn 7, producing puffs of blue smoke as the cars touched tires.
Verstappen loomed ahead but the young Dutchman, who produced an astonishing first lap after starting from 16th on the grid, suffered a lockup going into the hairpin allowing Vettel, rather anticlimactically, to take second place.
Hamilton, meanwhile, never looked seriously threatened despite a sequence of fastest laps from his German title rival.
“Grazie a tutti [ Thank you all]!” said Vettel over the radio. “I think we were a bit unlucky. It felt like we were the quickest, man. We couldn’t prove that today but next time we will.”
Ricciardo took fourth behind Verstappen after a furious late scrap between the two Red Bulls with Raikkonen finishing in fifth ahead of fellow Finn Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes.
Carlos Sainz finished seventh for Toro Rosso with Kevin Magnussen’s Haas eighth and the Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon rounding out the top 10.
Bottas apologized to his team for an embarrassing spin while weaving to warm his tires behind the safety car, which dropped him down to 12th.
“Really sorry, guys, for the amateur mistake,” said Bottas, who had earlier been called “Nico” over team radio. “I’ll make up for it in the next race.”
Mercedes signed Bottas in January to replace Nico Rosberg following the 2016 world champion’s shock retirement from the sport.
A wet track caused havoc early on with the virtual safety car deployed on Lap 1 after Lance Stroll spun off in his Williams.
The safety car was called again after Antonio Giovinazzi smashed his Sauber into a
wall.