LEWIS Hamilton gave us a convincing display of excellent driving in very damp conditions at the Shanghai track last Sunday.
Despite great efforts by Sebastian Vettel in both qualifying and the race, his Ferrari could not beat Hamilton’s Mercedes and the three-pointed star held firm.
Hamilton was the luckier of the two with the safety car intervention – two in first few laps – but he really deserved his race win.
In third position was Max Verstappen, after a magnificent show of highly skilled driving from start to finish.
He started 17th and, as a master at overtaking, relentlessly advanced his way up the grid until he was on the podium – it was really brilliant.
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In fourth place was teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who also drove a very good race but couldn’t match Verstappen.
Kimi Raikkonen was a little disappointing in the second Ferrari, three places behind teammate Vettel in fifth place.
Valtteri Bottas also hoped to do a little better than his final sixth position but it was all down to the brilliance of the two Red Bulls which had turned out to be the giant killers.
Further down the pack and in seventh place was Carlos Sainz Jr closely followed by Kevin Magnussen in eighth spot.
Completing the top 10 were Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon.
Fernando Alonso and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne in the McLaren Hondas were unlucky, both retiring with fuel pressure problems after a particularly good showing by Alonso initially.
The damp conditions made driving very challenging, which was added to by the greater speed of the new cars.
Overtaking was important and has fortunately proven a necessary possibility.
We look forward with great interest to the next race in Bahrain in just seven days’ time.
The lap record there has been held by McLaren since 2005 at one minute thirty-one point four.
Let us see if the new cars can break this long-standing target at last.
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