2018 Chinese Grand Prix review

When the race started we saw Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel having a bad get away from pole so he blocked his teammate Kimi Raikkonen completely! (just like in Bahrain) Again Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas was there to attack and took 2nd place from Raikkonen.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen also had a great start and overtook Raikkonen. He even let the team know how happy he was and they told him to keep calm.

The world champion Lewis Hamilton had a pretty bad start again. He basically got stuck in traffic and couldn't really get ahead. When is he going to start winning races this season?? This feels so weird!

On the 21st lap Bottas got in front of Vettel due to his under cut pit stop strategy. Only Raikkonen was in front so Ferrari ruined his race again to help Vettel. They just didn't pit him when he was supposed to so he lost a lot of time but it helped Vettel.

Bottas overtook Raikkonen easily with no problems what so ever. Raikkonen let Vettel pass him so no time lost there. Now finally Raikkonen got the green light to pit and because of the sacrifice he dropped to 6th.

At this point it seemed that Bottas was going to win the race but then the two Toro Rossos collided and the safety car was deployed. Now Red Bull got a huge advantage when they pitted for fresh tyres. Both Ricciardo and Verstappen were just flying after this! They clocked fastest laps lap after lap.

Verstappen almost collided with Hamilton and went off track. Ricciardo was able to pass him and started to chase the top3 drivers with Verstappen close behind him. They start by overtaking Hamilton easily. Hamilton even said on the radio that they should have stopped also once more.

Then Ricciardo overtook Vettel with DRS and it was so much easier with the newer tyres. Verstappen on the other hand crashed into the side of Vettel and ruined both of their chances to fight for a podium finish. Vettel was really frustrated obviously. Hamilton drove pass them but Raikkonen chose the other side around and overtook Hamilton as well for 3rd place!

The final thing Ricciardo had to do was to overtake the race leader Valtteri Bottas and eventually he did. Even though Bottas tried to block him he still found a gap and went for it. After the overtake Bottas had nothing on Ricciardo and the race was basically over.

I enjoyed this race more than the previous two this season so more races like this please!

And then as usual it's time for the predictions and the results:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. Vettel took pole.

The race:

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. He was 4th after a lot of bad luck and Ricciardo won.
2. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes - CORRECT
3. Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari - CORRECT

Fastest lap: Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari - WRONG. Would have been but Ricciardo got newer tyres and was faster.

Surprise: Esteban Ocon, Force India - He was surprisingly bad in my opinion

Join our PREDICTORS LEAGUE now!


POINTS: 1st - 3
2nd - 5
3rd - 10

+ possible bonus points

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. For example if you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points.

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!

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 & PM. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway.