2017 Chinese GP: Hamilton wins, Verstappen storms from 16th to the podium

Lewis Hamilton won the 2017 Chinese GP for Mercedes from pole position. He led every lap and set the fastest lap of the race. Sebastian Vettel finished second in the Ferrari, while Max Verstappen took third place for Red Bull from grid position 16. The race at the Shanghai International Circuit was decided in the opening laps: Vettel pitted early under the Virtual Safety Car, the real Safety Car came out shortly afterwards, and that allowed his rivals to change tyres far more cheaply.

The track was still damp after the morning rain, so almost the entire field started on intermediates. Only Carlos Sainz gambled on slicks in the Toro Rosso. At first it backfired: Sainz spun on the first lap and later brushed the wall. Jolyon Palmer pitted for dry tyres straight after the formation lap and took a pit lane start.

Hamilton defended the lead at the start without any trouble, and Vettel kept Valtteri Bottas behind him. Further back, Verstappen's show began. He had suffered engine misfires in qualifying and had already been knocked out in Q1. According to Wikipedia, he passed nine cars on the first lap.

Also on the first lap, Sergio Pérez and Lance Stroll made contact. The Williams driver spun into the gravel and got stuck there. Race Control deployed the Virtual Safety Car (VSC). Ferrari brought Vettel in on lap 2 to switch to slicks. On paper it was a bold undercut, but the leading group around Hamilton stayed out on intermediates.

On lap 4 the race turned. Antonio Giovinazzi, standing in as a replacement driver at Sauber, lost control on the exit of the final corner and crashed heavily on the still-wet start/finish straight. The full Safety Car was deployed for the recovery. Hamilton, Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo, Kimi Räikkönen and Verstappen now picked up their slicks at almost no cost in time and kept their positions. As a result, Vettel dropped from second to sixth.

That all but settled Bottas's day. On lap 7 he tried to warm up his cold tyres behind the Safety Car, spun and fell from fifth to twelfth. He himself called it a “stupid mistake” (Wikipedia). Nico Hülkenberg received two time penalties for Renault. The first, a five-second penalty, was for passing Romain Grosjean under the VSC. The second, a ten-second penalty, followed for overtaking Marcus Ericsson under the Safety Car.

After the restart, Verstappen was on the softer supersofts and moved past Räikkönen and Ricciardo into second place. That made him Hamilton's closest challenger. But now Vettel began his fightback. On lap 20 he overtook team-mate Räikkönen, and two laps later he went round the outside of Ricciardo at Turn 6. According to formula1.com, Verstappen's turn came on lap 28: the Dutchman locked up into the Turn 14 hairpin, opening the way to second place for Vettel.

On lap 29 Red Bull brought Verstappen in for a second set of supersofts. He rejoined behind Bottas but quickly passed the Finn. Ricciardo followed the same strategy and stopped on lap 33. The front-runners opted for soft tyres and just one stop after the Safety Car. Vettel pitted on lap 34, Hamilton two laps later, and the Mercedes driver stayed ahead. Räikkönen stayed out longest and did not stop until lap 39. According to crash.net, that stop was preceded by a radio row with his engineers. Afterwards Vettel was back in second, with Verstappen third.

In the closing stages Vettel piled on the pressure once more, but according to crash.net Hamilton responded with a series of fast laps. According to formula1.com, the gap between the two at the flag was 6.2 seconds. Further back, Verstappen held off Ricciardo until the final lap. Räikkönen could only finish fifth, Bottas sixth.

Five drivers failed to finish:

• Lance Stroll (Williams): collision with Pérez, did not complete a lap.
• Antonio Giovinazzi (Sauber): crash after 3 laps, on the start/finish straight.
• Stoffel Vandoorne (McLaren): Stoffel Vandoorne retired after 17 laps with fuel pressure problems.
• Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso): Daniil Kvyat parked the car after 18 laps with a hydraulic failure.
• Fernando Alonso (McLaren): driveshaft after 33 laps. Particularly painful, as Fernando Alonso had already been up to sixth on lap 7 and was on course for points.

For McLaren, that meant a race without a single car reaching the finish.

Winners: Verstappen gained 13 places, more than anyone else, and the fans voted him Driver of the Day. Grosjean started from grid position 19 after a five-place grid penalty and gained eight positions. In the end, he missed out on the points by just one place in eleventh. Esteban Ocon (+7) scored a point for Force India in tenth. Sainz more than made up for his tyre gamble at the start and brought home the best result for Toro Rosso in seventh place. Kevin Magnussen also gained four places and, in eighth, scored the first points of the season for the Haas F1 Team.

Losers: Besides Stroll (-10), Felipe Massa was hit hardest. He started sixth, lost eight positions and could only finish 14th. Hülkenberg dropped from seventh on the grid to twelfth because of his penalties. With his spin behind the Safety Car, Bottas lost three places compared with his grid position, and probably his chance of a podium too.

With his win, Hamilton drew level with Vettel in the 2017 standings, with both now on 43 points. Verstappen moved up to third on 25 points, ahead of Bottas (23) and Räikkönen (22). In the constructors' standings, Mercedes now led on 66 points, a single point ahead of Ferrari (65). Red Bull followed on 37 points, already a long way back.

It was Hamilton's 54th Formula 1 win and his fifth in China. With pole, victory, fastest lap and leading every lap, he also completed the third grand slam of his career. As early as the second race, the season was already showing where it was heading: Ferrari were capable of challenging Mercedes on equal terms. Vettel kept it brief on the title fight, saying only that whoever wins will have deserved it (formula1.com).