Before the race start I said that the man who leads after the first corners will win the race. When the race started I saw that Valtteri Bottas had a little better start than Sebastian Vettel but lost the position in the first corner. Bottas tried to challenge Vettel a few times for the lead but was unsuccessful.
We saw a few crashes on the first lap as well. Stoffel Vandoorne, Kevin Magnussen and Daniel Ricciardo were in a small sandwich but the Aussie was able to continue even though he dropped to the back. We also saw Esteban Ocon and Romain Grosjean crash into each other. It was Ocon's first retirement in Formula One! 27 finishes in a row. What a long streak for a rookie! Grosjean was able to continue after the crash and got a penalty for it later on.
The safety car was deployed and Bottas continued to hunt down Vettel. It seemed that it was not easy so easy so Mercedes decided to pit Bottas and do an undercut. They lost by half a second and Vettel remained in the lead.
On lap 44 the car number 44 (Lewis Hamilton) pitted from the lead even though he had started from the pit lane. Absolutely fantastic drive! The pitstop obviously made him drop to 5th place but it didn't take long for Hamilton to overtake Max Verstappen for 4th. He even tried to challenge Kimi Räikkönen for 3rd place but the Iceman told the press that he wasn't worried about Hamilton.
In the and they cross the finish line in that same order and Hamilton was chosen by the fans to be the driver of the day and I couldn't have agreed more.
Here are my predictions and the results:
Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. The other Merc (Bottas) took pole.
Race:
- Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. Vettel won the race and Hamilton was 4th.
- Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes - CORRECT
- Max Verstappen, Red Bull - WRONG. Räikkönen was 3rd and Verstappen was 5th
Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. Verstappen was fastest.
Surprise: Felipe Massa will have a great weekend - CORRECT! I bet he was much happier with this year's home GP.
Post your own predictions to our F1-4-LIFE PREDICTORS LEAGUE!
The rules:
POINTS: 1st - 3 2nd - 5 3rd - 10
HOW IT WORKS: the aim of the game is simply predict who comes where in the race (top3). A total of 18 points can be won on a race day. If you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points same if you get 1 correct. eg. 2nd you get 5 points. If a driver wins the race and you said he would come 2nd or 3rd no points would be awarded. Same if he came in another position, and you predicted that wrong. A table will be posted up every race weekend. The point scoring system will change once the cars become more competitive. Everyone will say a merc 1,2 so it won't be close or fun.
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PREDICTIONS: send an email to f14lifeblog@gmail.com or message the Facebook page to submit your predictions. You have until lights out to make them. If you submit them when the race has started they won't count. So be quick! like the Mercedes.
THE PRIZE: the winner of the league will win themselves a admin place on the F1 4 LIFE page along side AE, JT, MW, MH, JI and PM. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway. We may also come up with some other prize if it helps.
That's it for today and if you want to send me feedback then email me: f14lifeblog@gmail.com
