Lewis Hamilton wins Chinese GP, draws level with Sebastian Vettel

Mercedes may have pummelled the competition previous year, but star driver Lewis Hamilton said Sunday the German constructors face a heavyweight brawl with a beefed-up Ferrari team this season.

“I think it’s great that we have. we were saying that we were both pushing”.

Hamilton and Vettel now sit on equal points in the championship as the battle really looks on between Mercedes and Ferrari. “I said to him on the podium “I told you”, the Brit added.

Hamilton delivered an emphatic response following his defeat to Sebastian Vettel at the season-opener to lead every lap and claim his first victory of the new campaign. Though he quickly got by and caught up to the Red Bulls with super-soft tyres of his own, he ran out of laps and had to settle for fifth. But after being stuck behind Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen early on, the German began to show the pace that swept him to victory in Melbourne two weeks ago.

During his second stint in China, Raikkonen held up his teammate Sebastian Vettel as he struggled to get past Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo.

In the first of back-to-back Grand Prix weekends, the third race of the season will take place in Bahrain next weekend.

Marchionne then said the 2017 F1 vehicle was “absolutely” not built to favour Vettel’s driving style over Raikkonen’s. “I think we were a bit unlucky”.

The four-time champion said: “It felt like we were the quickest, man”. We have certain things to improve. Today we finished second.

“We tried it, we took the risk. It was good fun, I can’t complain”.

Further down it were Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz in seventh and Haas’ Kevin Magnussen in eighth. Raikkonen’s form (he finished fourth in Australia) is unlikely to please the Ferrari hierarchy who will feel they finally have a auto to challenge Mercedes for this year’s constructors’ crown. “It really, really does when you are fighting another team”, he said. “I’ll make up for it in the next race”.

When an incident between Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez that ultimately put the Williams driver out of the race, caused a Virtual Safety Car period, drivers began pitting for slicks.

The wet weather conditions would have certainly made the race more interesting between the two but the German driver dropped a few places after deciding to go to the pits just before the safety auto was deployed to clear Antonio Giovinazzi’s crashed Sauber vehicle.