The 4th round of the F1 2018 season has finished and once again the race result was influenced by the safety car, the incident between Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo brought excitement in a race were despite some good moments early on was running a bit dull in its later half.
Victory fell into Lewis Hamilton hands when Vettel lock-up trying to overtake Bottas in a clumsy restart where he was almost overtaken by Hamilton, and later when Bottas had a rear right puncture, but Lewis did almost everything right to win his first race of the season, you can say that after the problems with the Virtual SC in Melbourne Hamilton and Vettel are even in regards to having a clear win being lost because of circumstances beyond their control.
The early laps saw a lot of attrition between drivers as expected from such a tight yet fast street circuit with the lack of grip being a concern on lap 1, Raikkonen trying to recover 6th place touched Esteban Ocon rear left wheel sending the French driver into the barrier and ending his weekend, Sergey Sirotkin was also out after being “sandwiched” between the Renault of Hulkenberg and Alonso McLaren, the Spaniard was able to get back to the pits despite a double puncture in the right side tires, Raikkonen also had to pit because of the crash with Ocon.
After the first SC came in we saw a lot of fights between the Red Bull Drivers, the Renaults, Lance Stroll, Charles Leclerc and later Raikkonen, the Red Bull battle specially being thrilling, but it would end in disaster, more on that later. At the front Vettel seemed to have an advantage until the Mercedes could warm their tires to a proper temperature, with Hamilton slight catching the Ferrari driver until he lock-up and had to anticipate his pit stop, Bottas on the other hand was delaying his until the SC period that would change the history of the Race.
The Red Bull drivers were battling each other for most of the Race and with both using the Super Soft tires since the start it was clear they would pit latter than other in the race, Ricciardo who had overtaken Verstappen before his stop came back behind the dutch and tried to overtake him at the end of the start/finish straight, in an attempt to predict what Verstappen would do Ricciardo tried to do a maneuver similar to the historical Mansell vs Piquet at Silverstone 1987, unfortunately for the Australian Max didn’t moved to much to the right (he even slightly went left) and Ricciardo crashed in the rear of Max Verstappen taking both drivers out of the Race.
Because of the incident the SC came back and Bottas took the chance to do his pit stops, with Vettel,Hamilton and Raikkonen pitting again to put the Ultra softs, the expectation was high since now we had the top 4 cars in the field all with the same types of tires and in the 4 top spots with only 9-8 laps to go, but the SC period was extended when Romain Grosjean lost control of his Hass and crashed into the wall, so after more laps behind the SC the race would have only 4-5 lap in green flag.
At the restart Bottas did a good get away but was still caught at the end of the straight by Vettel, who in turn was having a difficult time keeping Hamilton behind, Vettel tried to overtake Bottas but he lock-up and went wide, losing positions to Hamilton,Kimi and later to Perez since he had a flat spot on his right front tire.
On the next lap race leader Valteri Bottas had a puncture after collecting debris in the straight and had to retire handing the lead to Hamilton that went on to win a race were it seemed Ferrari would dominate with Vettel. Raikkonen finished 2nd with Perez in a great race for Force India finishing again in 3rd at Baku, they were followed by Vettel, Sainz in a good race for Renault despite Hulkenberg crashing and losing vital points for the team, 6th place was Charles Leclerc finally showing why people consider him a future star of F1, 7th was Alonso that recovered after that initial blunder, 8th was Lance Stroll taking Williams first points of the season and Vandoorne and Hartley closing the top 10.
It has being a great season so far and until the next race in Spain there will be a lot of talks about the incident between the Red Bull’s and what will be the future of Daniel Ricciardo, although I believe he was in fault in the incident there was also contact in previous fights and Max wasn’t making it easy for Ricciardo despite being team mates, as he should but there is a limit in fighting your team mate to avoid the worst case scenario and unfortunately for them they both crossed it today.
So Spain in 2 weeks and there will be a lot of questions to be answered until them, what will be Red Bull decision concerning team order? Will Hamilton start to dominate again or will Ferrari continue to have a slight edge over them? I can’t hardly wait for the next race.
