Ricciardo’s gamble pays off with victory in Chinese Grand Prix

Even with the fresh rubber offering an advantage of more than one second per lap, Ferrari did not react immediately with Vettel at the front, instead waiting until Lap 20 to bring the race leader in. The Australian driver made use of the good fortune and wasted no time in passing first Hamilton, then Vettel and finally Bottas to take the race lead.

“It’s more likely than not we’ll have a penalty”.

From Riccardo similar problems do not arise – Daniel spectacular maneuvers bypassed Vettel and Bottas and scored the sixth win of the season.

Ferrari reacted a lap later, but a great middle sector from Bottas helped him sweep past into Turn 1 as Vettel exited the pits. Kimi Raikkonen was third for Ferrari.

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A smokey turbo blow-out during FP3 on Saturday left Ricciardo’s Red Bull mechanics scrambling to get him out in time for qualifying, getting into Q2 by the skin of his teeth. His mechanics finished changing the unit with minutes to spare in the first part of qualifying. “Today is the real reward for that work”.

Vettel and teammate Raikkonen grabbed a lockout for Ferrari on the front row to put the pressure on Mercedes. Verstappen jumped Hamilton to go into third while Hamilton dropped to fifth. Vettel limped on, falling down the order to eighth.

“I was in no-man’s land today”, said Hamilton.

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While Vettel retained his lead at the start, Bottas squeezed past the second Ferrari of Raikkonen and set off in pursuit of the German, who had been hoping to make it a hat-trick of victories in China.

Keep an eye out for the Red Bulls too, which will start on the ultra-soft compound and should have a significant traction advantage off the line. With about half an hour to go I went in to see the engineers, I said, ‘How are we looking?’ I was always going to get ready regardless but they were realistic as opposed to optimistic and they said it’s going to be very tight.

“I saved the thanks-yous for after the session, I just got out there, we didn’t have time to mess around”.

Max Verstappen will start the 2018 Chinese Grand Prix from fifth place on the grid.

“It is disappointing. We gave it everything we had”, said Bottas. Both cars continued racing but Vettel was overtaken by Hulkenberg, his chance of victory now gone. We survived with one for one race.

A week after claiming an incredible fourth place for Toro Rosso-Honda, Pierre Gasly didn’t have such fun in Shanghai – colliding with team-mate Brendon Hartley mid-race.

“At the moment, things aren’t going the way I want but it doesn’t mean I have to calm down”. With the safety vehicle deployed, Red Bull reacted first, immediately calling both cars into the pits, their team once again proving the most alert of the field.