RACE REPORT
BLOW-BY-BLOW
When the lights went out, it was Vettel who
made the best start. The German powered
away from P2 on the grid and grabbed the
lead as he and Hamilton went through Turn
One. Behind, Raikkonen in the second Ferrari
was making a move around the outside of
Bottas in the second Mercedes. With Red
Bull’s Verstappen further outside it was a tight
squeeze into the first corner and Raikkonen’s
rear right got inside of his countryman’s front
left. There was contact and the impact bounced
Raikkonen into Verstappen. The result was
suspension damage and early DNF for both.
There was contact, too, between seventh-
placed starter Fernando Alonso and ninth on
the grid Felipe Massa. Alonso had worked
miracles to haul his underperforming McLaren
to P7 on the grid a day earlier, but it was
undone when he was hit in Turn 2 by the
Williams man. Alonso dropped to P11 and
eventually drifted out to P13 by the end of the
grand prix.
By lap 14 Vettel had pulled out an almost
three-second gap to Hamilton. The German
then pitted for soft tyres, leaving Hamilton in
clean air. His engineer was quickly on the radio
telling the Briton it was “his opportunity, give it
everything you’ve got”.
Hamilton responded with a race fastest
lap, but Vettel was alive to the threat and fought
back with a purple time of his own.
Hamilton made his first stop on lap 22,
taking on the medium tyres. He rejoined in third,
7.3 seconds behind Vettel, who was right on the
tail of leader Bottas who needed to pit.