The 2018 Chinese Grand Prix was an action packed raced. A race like this was bound to happen soon after the Bahrain Grand Prix produced 40 overtakes in just 10 laps. Last week’s Grand Prix was filled with overtakes and it also had a mixture of different strategies, multiple accidents and some eye-catching battles.
At the China Grand Prix the stand out team was definitely Aston Martin Red Bull Racing after Daniel Ricciardo had a turbo failure in FP3 and needed the car to be fixed in just two hours before the end of Q1. Despite the odds against them, the Red Bull mechanics got on to work and managed to get Ricciardo out of the garage just minutes before the end of Q1.
After qualifiers, Ricciardo managed to put his Red Bull 6th just behind his teammate Max Verstappen. He then said in an interview that he would have liked to repay the team with a pole position which was a joke considering he finished 8 tenths behind pole sitter, Sebastian Vettel. But that joke became an almost equivalent reality on Sunday.
Daniel and Max started 5th and 6th behind both Mercedes and Ferraris. Max had a great start and moved his Red Bull up to 3rd while Ricciardo stayed 6th. On lap 20 Mercedes took a gamble to try and perform the undercut on Vettel and get Valteri in front. As Vettel exited the pits Valteri swooped around the outside of him into trun 1. Ferrari left Raikkonen out using him to block Valteri for Vettel. Kimi was driving an amazing race but once again Ferrari used him for Vettel’s benefit. Once Valteri caught Kimi he overtook him in turn 1 and Kimi immedeatly let Vettel through to chase Valteri. Mercedes told Valteri to “stay infront of Vettel!!”
On lap 30 Pier Gasly and Brendon Hartley collided after Pier tried to dive down the inside of Brendon. Pier turned his car too late and hit his fellow Kiwi teamate. A safety car was deployed and Red Bull quickly called in both their boys to come into the pits for a set of soft tyres. The mechanics performed a double pitstop in just ten seconds. With just 20 laps remaining the safety car left the track and the drivers returned to racing speed. Max and Daniel were the only ones who pitted and had a huge tyre advantage as they had fresh and fast tyres. Red Bull were going for the win.
One lap later and Daniel Ricciardo overtook Kimi in style braking late and still brushing the apex of the corner. Ricciardo was 5th and Max was 4th. Max two laps later attacked Lewis Hamilton and made an overly ambitious move around the outside into turn 7 and ran off the track. Ricciardo narrowly missed Max as he rejoined the track, this meant that Daniel was now 4th and Max was 5th.
On lap 40 Ricciardo made a move on Hamilton by braking extremely late into turn 14. This was another famous Daniel Ricciardo trade mark move down the inside. He braked so late that even commentators David Croft and Martin Brundell couldn’t believe it. Ricciardo was now 3rd with 16 laps to go. On lap 42 Max was more settled and safely overtook Hamilton into turn 6. On the same lap Ricciardo breezed pass Vettel with DRS and now was left the chase current race leader Valteri Bottas.
One lap later and Max was hungry to overtake Vettel and tried a move into turn 14 but broke too late and hit Vettel’s sidepod. They both spun around and were overtaken by Hamilton and Kimi. Max managed to get infront of a furious Vettel who was now under pressure from Nico Hulkenberg. The stewards immedeatly gave Max a 10 second time penalty which would be added to the end of his race time. Hulkenberg took full advantage of this incident and passed Vettel around the outside into turn 1. Ricciardo who was busy chasing Vettel decided it was time to make a move and braked EXTREMELY late into turn 6. Bottas closed the door but Ricciardo still held on. There was less than 10 cm inbetween the two cars but Ricciardo was driving superbly on those fresh tyres and made the move stick.
After hitting Vettel, Max was once again left to overtake Hamilton. This time he went around the outside of Hamilton into turn 6. Vettel was struggling and Alonso put an amazing move on him into turn 1,2 and 3. After all the drama in the last 20 laps, it was Daniel Ricciardo who took the win at Shanghai in style. Max crossed the chequered flag 4th but his time penaly pushed him down to 5th, he finished infront of Vettel afterall. Max could have easily won the race if he had been more careful overtaking Vettel and Hamilton. He had a huge tyre advantage and could have rewarded Red Bull with a 1-2 finish.
Overall the Red Bull mechanics should be proud about their amazing work last weekend.