In a dramatic finish to the Chinese Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo took his first win of the season after a late charge towards the top spot in the race. The Australian driver passed Valtteri Bottas in the second half of the race to take the lead, while Kimi Raikkonnen of Scuderia Ferrari took another consecutive podium coming in third. Pole sitter Sebastian Vettel dropped to P8 after a mess of a second half including a collision with Max Verstappen, which demoted the Dutch to fifth behind Lewis Hamilton. Ricciardo's win marks the first for Red Bull this season and sixth F1 win for the Australian in his career.
(Vettel and Verstappen had a collision on the hairpin turn)
The Chinese GP was expected to be battle between Ferrari and Mercedes as the drivers occupied the front two rows. The first half of the race was about the battle between Vettel and Bottas for the top spot, as Raikkonen was pushed down in the order. Vettel had built a lead of over 3 seconds over Bottas, until the Fin pitted on Lap 19 before Vettel. Ferrari pitted a lap later but a fantastic run from Bottas pushed him in the lead just as Vettel exited the pits. The battle continued between the two drivers till the mid-way point of the race with Bottas now in the lead until both the Torro Rosso cars collided bringing out the virtual safety car. This is when the attention shifted towards Red Bull.
(Gasly ran into Hartley at the hairpin, bringing out the Virtual Safety Car)
Verstappen and Ricciardo running third and fifth respectively with Lewis Hamilton in-between, pitted for softs taking advantage of the VSC. The move turned out to be the game changer in the race today with Ricciardo finding incredible pace. The Australian, who was down to P6 gunned down Raikkonen first to take fifth, and passed Hamilton to take P3 on Lap 40.
(Ricciardo passing Raikkon for P5, 4 seconds behind Hamilton at halfway point)
Just two laps later Verstappen passed Hamilton to claim fourth, and both Red Bulls were charging to the top spots. Vettel was now in P2 behind race lead Bottas, and Ricciardo passed the German on Lap 42 to tail the W09. Meanwhile, the battle for third between Vettel and Verstappen ended in a disaster for the former. The young Red Bull driver collided with Vettel on Lap 44, with both cars rotating in the apex.
The incident promoted to Raikkonen to P3, 1.811s behind Bottas and the Fin with fresher tyres charged on the W09 in a battle for second. On the other hand, Vettel dropped down to P7 behind Renault's Nico Hulkenberg, as a result of the collision while Verstappen recovered to P4. However, stewards handed Verstappen a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision.
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— Formula 1 (@F1) April 15, 2018
By Lap 47, Ricciardo had extended the lead by over 4 seconds, while also posting the fastest lap in the race, despite Bottas charging towards the new race leader to retake the top spot. Struggling in the middle-order, Vettel was passed by Alonso in a close overtake on the penultimate lap pushing the German to P8. There was no coming back for the Ferrari from there and the driver finished in the eighth place.
The last two points were picked up by Carlos Sainz of Renault and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen.
Ricciardo was least of all drivers expected to take a win. Mind you, the Australian almost didn't make it out for qualifying after engine failure in FP3, which was followed by a last minute engine swap.
The Chinese GP also marked Bottas' 100th F1 race, and Raikkonnen's 95th podium finish. The Chinese GP turned turned out to be an unexpected action-packed race with some edge-of-the-seat action. There's plenty more action to look forward to in the next races.
