Both SF71Hs were on the front row, but the start was closely contested. Seb maintained his pole advantage,
but Kimi had to give best to Bottas and also came under attack from Verstappen, who had the advantage of
running the Ultrasoft tyres and had also passed Hamilton. The race leader extended his lead to a couple of
seconds, to stay out of the DRS range and Kimi was also fending off Hamilton. At the moment, the very long
Shanghai straight was not the scene of any overtaking.
Over the radio, it was time to discuss strategy. Red Bull did a double tyre change on lap 18 and Kimi made
the most of the clear air to set his fastest time, while Hamilton headed for the pits to fit Mediums. One lap
later (number 20) it was Bottas’ turn to pit and Ferrari reacted, but the pit stop took a few tenths too long and
coming out of pit lane, Vettel found himself behind Valtteri, who had pushed really hard on his out lap.
Now there was a group of three: Raikkonen, yet to change tyres, was attacked by Bottas, but held him off at
the hairpin. This allowed Seb to close and when Kimi had to give best before pitting, the number 5 car was in
the DRS zone. Time for another thrilling duel, the third in as many races. On lap 32, the Safety Car came out
to allow debris to be cleared away after the two Toro Rossos had collided at the hairpin. Our boys stayed out
and Kimi gained ground on Ricciardo who had pitted.
The race resumed on lap 36 and, on new Softs, Ricciardo attacked Kimi who had lost time with Verstappen.
Max himself went off track while attacking Hamilton, and Ricciardo got past. The Red Bull pair had the edge
in terms of tyres and Verstappen was thus able to repass Hamilton, while Ricciardo got ahead of Seb.
Verstappen also tried to get ahead of the German but instead, he tipped the Ferrari into a spin on lap 44. The
Stewards investigated the incident and gave Verstappen a 10 second penalty.
Kimi was third, faster than Bottas, who had lost the lead to Ricciardo, but Sebastian had dropped down to
seventh with damage to the side of his car, so that even Alonso barged past him. The world champion could
do nothing other than defend his eighth place from a last attack from Sainz.
Valtteri Bottas
This is disappointing; today doesn’t feel like winning a podium but like losing a win. Coming home second is
not what we aimed for after the beginning of the race and the successful undercut. The team did a really good
job, the pit stop was absolutely perfect and came at the right moment. We lost the race under the safety car.
When it came out, Sebastian and I were already past the pit entry, so we were a bit unlucky – the cars
behind us could react, but we didn’t have any choice. They could get fresh tyres, but I ended up doing nearly
40 laps on the Medium, so of course it was slower in the end. It’s very close between Red Bull, Ferrari and
us, so we need to make sure we keep developing our car. Nearly winning both last weekend and this
weekend is the worst feeling – but it makes both me and the entire team even hungrier. Thankfully there are a
lot more races to go.
Lewis Hamilton
It was another difficult day at the office. I was trying to hold on, but my tyres were done, so I had no chance of
keeping the Red Bulls behind. Saturday and Sunday felt like a disaster from my side. I just haven’t had the
pace since yesterday and I struggled with the car. We’ve been underperforming but I’m not going to let my
head drop because I know we have a tough battle ahead of us. I need to get back to my normal level of
performance before I lose more valuable points. It could have been worse, Max did me a favour today in terms
of the points standings, but it’s a weekend to forget, that’s for sure. Now we need to work hard to understand
why we have been struggling and start the climb back to the front of the field.
Toto Wolff
I am sure that was a fantastic grand prix for the fans watching in the grandstands and back at home – but it
was a very challenging one from where we were sitting. Ultimately, the reality of today’s pace is that we
lacked pace in each phase – Sebastian managed the performance in the opening stint, building a good gap to
Valtteri, and the Red Bulls were significantly faster on fresher tyres after the Safety Car. The best part of our
day was undoubtedly Valtteri’s drive: the pit wall called an aggressive undercut, the boys delivered a perfect
pit stop and he claimed first the position over Sebastian, then the lead from Kimi with a bold pass round the
outside. We saw a real fighter in the car today and, while he was unfortunate with the Safety Car timing
opening the door for Red Bull, he protected P2 in a perfect way. For Lewis, it was a tougher afternoon. He
could not make progress in the opening stint, pitted early for the medium tyre running a one-stop strategy and
then was sitting in P3 after the Safety Car came in. At that stage we believed that gaining track position was
key as we did not see any overtaking in the first part of the race. In the end we must admit that the decision
from Red Bull to pit for a fresh set of tyres under the safety car was the right call but that was not a given at
that stage of the race. P2 and P4 is some good damage limitation from a tricky race but it is little comfort that
this puts us in the lead of the constructors’ championship as we head home. We have seen the competitive
picture change quickly over the past three races and it’s clear that we still have much to understand about our
car and how to get the best from the tyres. We have been in tough spots before in recent years and shown
the right spirit to respond. We will do the same again this time.
Andrew Shovlin
Firstly congratulations to Valtteri finishing his 100th race with another podium. Last week Valtteri was wanting
the race to run a few laps longer and this week he’ll be glad that it finished when it did. He drove a strong
race, managed his tyres well and had the pace to make the undercut work with Vettel. It would have been
great to have seen him on the top step but we missed it by quite a margin today as we just weren’t fast
enough compared to Red Bull. Leading up to the safety car, the race was going reasonably well. Valtteri was
running in first place and Lewis was in fourth having benefit from Ferrari going long on the first stint with Kimi.
The safety car changed the situation: we had to stay out with Valtteri to retain the lead and decided not to
stop Lewis as we might have lost a position to Ricciardo, and risked losing a further place to Kimi. We’d not
been able to overtake during the first stint so were conscious that if we’d lost that position, we may have been
stuck there. However, we simply didn’t have the pace to beat Red Bull on the same strategy today and we
need to be very honest with ourselves regarding our performance of our car this weekend. We’ve had very
different conditions over qualifying and race but haven’t been fastest in either. We’re off to Baku next which is
a very different type of circuit and we are fully expecting another close battle. We’ve got work to do in many
areas, both qualifying and race pace need to be improved. This championship is anyone’s to win and we will
be working flat out over the next few weeks and month to try and solve our weaknesses.
Nico Hülkenberg
“Everyone seemed to have low grip at the start with cars sliding all over the place. We were on a two-stop
strategy from the beginning, so we had to make the tyre last, while maintaining strong pace. It paid off well;
the safety car played to our hands and made things easier, but even without the safety car I think we would
have come out on top. The pace was good today and we were on top of the midfield, so not a bad day overall.
Eight points, we’ll take that home. It was an entertaining one, that’s for sure!”
Carlos Sainz
“Double points for the team again this year! Well done! I made a really good start moving on one of the Red
Bulls but he squeezed me out on the first lap, moving back a couple of places behind Nico. From there we
managed to cover two-stops with the aid of the safety car. On my last stint, traffic behind Alonso and
Magnussen degraded my tyres too much and I had to save them in order to have a better opportunity at the
end of the race. It was really close with Vettel… had there been another lap I would have had him. Overall, I´m
happy to score more points, but I still need to work hard with my engineers to get full confidence with the car.”
Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal
“Today was obviously a good day for the team which shows we are gaining in maturity. We had decent
starting positions with both cars in the top ten, but that actually put us in a difficult position with our race
strategy as we knew we would have to do two stops when the competitors around us were in a position to
complete the race with one. But thanks to many very clean overtaking moves from our drivers we made that
work. The safety car helped slightly but I don’t think it would have changed much. The team is building and
getting stronger across the board. Our pace was encouraging, as was the win of Daniel Ricciardo, showing
the Renault power unit is getting there and is a race-win capable engine.”
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