Lewis Hamilton clinched victory in an entertaining Azerbaijan Grand Prix from Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas who suffered a puncture after the safety car period caused by both Red Bulls colliding, which set up a crazy end.

 

 

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was heading towards a comfortable win before the complexion of the race changed when Daniel Ricciardo smacked the rear of team-mate Max Verstappen at the first corner in the fight for fourth place.

 

Bottas survived a dive from Vettel into turn one after the safety car period ended and was pushing towards victory until a puncture handed the Silver Arrow’s first victory in 2018 to Hamilton, with Kimi Raikkonen finishing second and Force India’s Sergio Perez beating Vettel to a surprising third place.

 

How the 51 lap Azerbaijan GP Unfolded

 

 

The began in chaotic fashion after a couple of first lap incidents which deployed the safety car to clear scattered debris.

 

Force India’s Esteban Ocon attacked Raikkonen and attempted to pass the SF71H racer around the outside of turn two, which led both drivers to run wheel-to-wheel on the run down towards turn three.

 

Ocon made the turn into the apex with the Finn nearly alongside him and the contact forced the Force India into the wall and the Frenchman was out of the race with Raikkonen escaping with a damaged front wing and pitting for a new one.

 

At the same time, further behind, Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin rear-ended Force India’s Perez at turn two and upon the exit of the corner was sandwiched in-between McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg.

 

Hulkenberg hit Sirotkin into Alonso, which broke the right front of the of the Williams FW41 and forced Sirotkin to end his race early as Alonso returned to the pits with destroyed tyres on the right-hand side.

 

Vettel cramped the field up massively when the safety car came in and kept the pack congested until the last moment when he reached the safety car line.

 

The German pulled away and built a comfortable gap over Hamilton, who dropped the lead under four seconds before locking both fronts on lap 21.

 

That forced Hamilton to switch to the yellow-branded soft rubber as Vettel and Bottas, who was running a little further behind in third, remained out on track with a very long stint on the supersoft compounds.

 

Hamilton’s lack of pace urged Vettel to stay out until lap 30 before chucking on softs while Bottas continued his long first stint.

 

The Finn was running nicely on his supersoft tyres when the battle of the Red Bulls became very intense.

 

Ricciardo was much quicker than team-mate Verstappen at various stages of the race but was shut-down several times by the Dutchman, and the duo even touched lightly into turn one as Verstappen ran wide into Ricciardo after holding the inside line.

 

Verstappen lost out to the Australian just after the halfway point of the race but got back ahead by pitting a lap after Ricciardo, then once again was under attack Ricciardo picked up a strong slipstream on the rundown towards the first corner.

 

Ricciardo pulled to the right and dived up the inside but the Dutchman covered him and was rammed into as Ricciardo locked up.

 

Verstappen’s RB14 racer was briefly in the air as both Red Bulls slid down the turn one run off area.

 

The safety car period was a long one, mainly because Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean lost the rear of his Ferrari-powered VF18 warming his tyres through turns 13 and 14 and smashed into the wall from sixth place.

 

The safety car came in with four laps remaining as Vettel made a late dive past Bottas into turn one for the lead but locked up hugely and ran wide, which dropped the German to fourth position behind Hamilton and Raikkonen.

 

Bottas moved comfortably clear over most of the lap and out of DRS range from team-mate Hamilton until disaster struck when the Finn ran over a piece of debris and suffered a left-rear puncture at the end of the main straight.

 

That put Hamilton in the lead with Raikkonen safe in second as Perez pushed past Vettel for third who was struggling with a flat-spotted tyre, to claim a surprise podium despite Vettel fighting hard to take the place back. The victory sees Hamilton on top of the Driver’s Championship with a four- point lead.

 

Carlos Sainz brought his Renault RS18 racer home in fifth place after fighting past the Red Bulls in the earlier stages of the race with an impressive stint on the ultras. His team-mate Nico Hulkenberg was also in the fight before crashing out.

 

Sauber’s Charles Leclerc claimed his first points of the season with a brilliant sixth place, making his way through the chaotic-filled opening lap and getting by Lance Stroll’s Williams earlier on.

 

Stroll settled for eighth place behind McLaren’s Alonso, who recovered after a horrible first lap that forced the Spaniard to pit for a new front wing and gave him a damaged floor.

 

Stoffel Vandoorne finished in ninth place and gave the Woking-based squad another double points finish with Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley completing the top 10 and taking his first point in Formula 1.

 

The other Sauber of Marcus Ericsson finished outside the top 10 in 11^th place and ahead of Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly who was 12^th and Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen who took 13^th.

 

Formula 1 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix Race Results Classification (51 Laps)

POS	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	GAP
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	51	1h43m44.291s
2	Kimi Raikkonen	Scuderia Ferrari	51	2.460s
3	Sergio Perez	Force India F1 Team	51	4.024s
4	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari	51	5.329s
5	Carlos Sainz	Renault Sport F1 Team	51	7.515s
6	Charles Leclerc	Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team	51	9.158s
7	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	51	10.931s
8	Lance Stroll	Williams Martini Racing	51	12.546s
9	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	51	14.152s
10	Brendon Hartley	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	51	18.030s
11	Marcus Ericsson	Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team	51	18.512s
12	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	51	24.720s
13	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team	51	30.663s
14	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	48	Tyre
–	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team	42	Spun off
–	Daniel Ricciardo	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	39	Collision
–	Max Verstappen	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	39	Collision
–	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault Sport F1 Team	10	Spun off
–	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams Martini Racing	0	Collision
–	Esteban Ocon	Force India F1 Team	0	Collision

 

2018 Formula 1 World Drivers Championship Standings

1. Lewis Hamilton – 70 Points.
2. Sebastian Vettel – 66 Points.
3. Kimi Raikkonen – 48 Points.
4. Valtteri Bottas – 40 Points.
5. Daniel Ricciardo – 37 Points.
6. Fernando Alonso – 28 Points.
7. Nico Hulkenberg – 22 Points.
8. Max Verstappen – 18 Points.
9. Sergio Perez – 15 Points.
10. Carlos Sainz – 13 Points.

 

2018 World Constructors Championship Standings

1. Scuderia Ferrari – 114 Points.
2. Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport – 110 Points.
3. Aston Martin Red Bull Racing – 55 Points.
4. McLaren-Renault F1 Team – 36 Points.
5. Renault Sport F1 Team – 35 Points.
6. Force India F1 Team – 16 Points.
7. Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda – 13 Points.
8. Haas F1 Team – 11 Points.
9. Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team – 10 Points.
10. Williams Martini Racing – 4 Points.

 

Round five for the 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the Formula 1 Gran Premio De Espana Emirates 2018 from May 10-13.