Off an all-red front row, Seb made the most of pole, while Kimi who was starting on the dirty side of the track
was attacked and passed by Bottas. The virtual safety car was soon deployed, when Verstappen had a
puncture as a result of a coming together with Hamilton in the middle of the pack. The race got underway
again on lap 4, with Sebastian quickest, a couple of seconds ahead of Bottas. In the garage, an analysis of
our speed in individual corners and that of our rivals was taking place as well as working out how much fuel
had been saved while the race was neutralised A long distance duel with Hamilton thus began, the
Englishman fourth, 15 seconds adrift, but running the harder tyre: Supersoft for the SF71H and Soft for the
Mercedes.
19 laps, one third distance, Seb pitted as planned and fitted the yellow-banded Softs. The order was Bottas,
Raikkonen, Hamilton and Vettel. Next time round, Kimi did the same. Vettel pushed hard and Bottas,
emerging from pit lane on the Mediums, lost ground. On lap 25, Seb was in DRS range in his duel with
Hamilton, closing to under a second. It was time for wheel to wheel combat and Seb didn’t lose any time,
diving inside his rival under braking at the start of lap 26. Hamilton changed tyres immediately, also fitting the
Prime Medium. Seb had 5” in hand over Bottas, who was aiming to finish the race doing one less stop.
Sebastian lost time with backmarkers but Kimi made the most of the traffic to close on his fellow countryman.
Lap 36 and something you never want to see happened: Kimi came in to change tyres and as he drove off,
the mechanic on the left rear wheel was knocked over. The number 7 car stopped immediately, Seb stayed
out on track, but at this time, strategy, racing, counted for much less and with one of our own in the medical
centre, the thoughts of everyone in the team went out to him. Out on track, Bottas pursued Sebastian for 20
laps, but our driver never gave him room, even though his tyres were finished. That is Ferrari and that,
Francesco, is for you. Hurry back.
Maurizio Arrivabene
“Today’s result, with a win for Sebastian, is confirmation of the great job done by the team, of an effective car
and of a driver who drove like a true champion right to the very end. It was a shame for Kimi, who would have
completed a fine result for the team. We chose to take one of our mechanics up onto the podium as a mark
of respect to our colleague Francesco who was injured during the pit stop. The whole team hopes he recovers
quickly. We are already preparing for the next race in China and as usual we will give it our all.”
Sebastian Vettel
“Obviously, this is a great way to start the season and it wasn’t expected. Obviously Australia was a different
race and if you compare these two races, here we had the pace and won on our own. So, I think it’s been
much better, but it was a very tough race. It took a while for the adrenaline to go, but for the next week we are
not sure where we are going to be. It is difficult to predict with everything changing so much. In China it will be
a different track and a different challenge, but we have to improve our car and work on it. We still need to
improve the balance. However, if we should have a similar feeling like here, then I think we should be in a good
shape. We were losing a little bit at the end and Bottas was getting closer. We couldn’t wait and see what he
was doing. So, in response to that we had to come in first to protect the track as much as I could. We had
targeted two stops and that’s why we had chosen Soft tires. But then we had to change strategy; the tires
were already wearing out, but then it seemed everything was ok. But after 10 or 12 laps, the tires got worse
and the last five laps were very tricky. It feels better winning here than in Australia, because here we had the
pace. So, I am very happy, even though it’s sad to see one of our guys getting injured. I wish him to get well
soon, I know he’s in very good hands now.”
Kimi Raikkonen
“What happened to our guy Francesco today at the pit-stop is very unfortunate. I feel sorry for him and hope
he’s going to be OK soon. It’s always a bad thing when someone gets injured but I am sure he has the best
people taking good care of him and I wish him a speedy recovery. As for the accident itself, all I know is that I
moved when I saw the green light go on. I couldn’t have possibly realized that there was an issue with the rear
left wheel, then I saw someone had got hurt and, immediately, I was told to stop by the team. Unfortunately
something must have gone wrong and we’ll need to find out what. The car had good speed today but I had
some wheelspin at the start. Anyway, there’s not much I can do now but wait for the next race, where we’ll try
to do our best.”
Valtteri Bottas
It was so close in the end, it’s a shame I couldn’t win. When it’s so close, you start to think about every lap
and every corner after the race, trying to figure out if there is something you could have done better. But I feel
like I did a good race, I didn’t make any mistakes and I gave it everything I had. I didn’t try the Medium tyres
before the race, but it went well and we managed to do a really long stint. Only in the last three laps I started
to struggle with the tyres and once I got close to Sebastian everything got more difficult. The pace today was
better than expected so that we could put some pressure on Ferrari. It’s very close and it’s going to be an
interesting season. We still have work to do, especially for conditions like here in Bahrain. I think we can see
some positives, but the main thing for us is to really learn from this weekend.
Lewis Hamilton
It was not an easy race, but one that I feel quite happy with now that I’ve cooled down. Today was all about
damage limitation and I think to get in the top three is a really great result for the team and for myself. We
would prefer we didn’t have the gearbox issue that we had this weekend, but I was really happy with my race
pace. I had a really good start but I didn’t capitalize on it. I got past a couple of cars off the line and then I
went opposite to go on the inside. But the car ahead decided to dice to the right so I had to bail out and had
cars pass me on the left, so I fell back on the opening lap. In my mind I knew that I had to get past that group
of cars very early on. But by the time I did get past them the guys were 15 seconds ahead, so really the race
was lost in those opening laps. Ferrari have shown over the last two races that they have the edge at the
moment, but it is close and we definitely have to do a better job. Shanghai has always been a good hunting
ground for me, so I really hope that we can go there with some strength.
Toto Wolff
It’s incredibly frustrating to come so close to a win and to miss out at the very end but that was a race that
kept us on the edge of our seats until the final corners. If you had offered us P2 and P3 yesterday, I would
have taken it straight away; but when you consider that both Red Bulls retired, and one Ferrari, then it was
also the minimum result we should expect from the race. In hindsight, it’s easy to look back at the race and
see opportunities to win. When we came out after the first stops, running the medium tyre, I think we were in
a potentially race-winning position with Valtteri – but Ferrari and Sebastian managed the race extremely well
and earned the win. Our car really came alive on the soft and medium compounds today, and that is probably
one indication that we will see the competitive balance swing from track to track this season. For Lewis, a
podium finish after starting P9 is better than our predictions – and his three-car overtake was a real highlight
of the race. Overall, it was good damage limitation after we put ourselves on the back foot with the penalty.
And now we need to focus on those fine margins that make the difference between winning and losing these
finely balanced races.
James Allison
This is a Grand Prix that has to go down in the category of “one that got away”. But after a difficult qualifying
session yesterday, it was encouraging to see our long run pace was extremely competitive, especially
because this is what let us down so badly one year ago at this track. We cannot help but wonder what might
have been for Valtteri given another lap on Sebastian’s tail, or indeed had Lewis started the race without the
handicap of his gearbox penalty. But we must put those speculations behind us and head to China
determined to claim our first win of the 2018 season.
Nico Hülkenberg
“We got the maximum from the race today, which is a good positive. We didn’t quite have the pace to
compete with the cars ahead of us and that leaves me a little disappointed, so it’s clear the midfield fight is
very close. It was a busy race and our main focus was fuel saving whilst still trying to race other cars and I
think we managed that quite well tonight.”
Carlos Sainz
“I was surviving in the end there with very tired Soft tyres and having to do a lot of fuel saving. We need to
analyse what happened at the start because I had too much wheel spin and from there onwards the race was
compromised. I was stuck in traffic after both stops and we couldn’t really do a lot from there. It was a tough
day to be honest, but luckily China is just around the corner and we will fight our way back to the points.”
Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal
“It was an action-packed race that nevertheless saw us score a fine result with Nico who put in a great drive
on a track that is difficult for us. Carlos’ poor start penalised his race, which proved, once again, that every
detail counts. Carlos finished just outside the points, which is disappointing, but he did the best he could with
fuel management that became very complicated in his race to move back up the order. We had good pace in
qualifying and the performance level of the car should see us qualify higher on the grid and thus have easier
races. Sixth place for Nico keeps us in a good place in the Constructors’ Championship with a point total
in-line with our objectives, but the race pace wasn’t very good in particular with the Soft tyres, which needs to
be analysed, understood and improved as soon as possible.”
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