The F1 GP in China once again confirms that Mercedes are on their way to break records currently held by Ferrari, thanks to Micheal Schumacher.
From the start, the Mercedes had the advantage as both Hamilton and Bottas managed to qualify in first and second place. The Ferrari drivers led to get third and fourth, followed by both the Red Bull cars.
Unsurprisingly, both Mercedes drivers managed to hold onto their positions for the rest of the race, but Hamilton managed to deliver some fantastic times, even pulling ahead of his teammate Bottas who was over 6.5 seconds behind him at the end.
The Ferrari drivers could keep up, and it seemed as if Charles Leclerc was having an off day as the Ferrari pit team told him to let his teammate Sebastian Vettel get past by the 11th lap. Verstappen moved past Leclerc into third place and managed to keep it that way till the end, but didn’t get anywhere close to the Mercedes drivers and was more than 13.7 second behind Hamilton in first place.
The other Ferrari, driven by Charles Leclerc didn’t do well and finished in the fifth position behind Max Verstappen who passed him. Charles ended 31.276 seconds behind Hamilton and Max was at 27.627 seconds by the end.
Renault had yet another disappointing race, having Nico Hulkenberg retire from the race at lap 16 and Daniel Ricciardo finished in seventh, one lap behind the leader.
Points
At the end of the Chinese GP, we once again saw the most points go to Mercedes who took both first and second place. This gives Hamilton 25 points for first place, and Bottas scored 18 points in second. Sebastian Vettel scored 15 points for the Ferrari team, which is much needed if they have any hopes of moving up in the leaderboard with races to come.
Max Verstappen also scored some much-needed points for the Red Bull team with his fourth position finish, giving him 12 points, followed by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who added another 10 points for the team.
When we look at the overall points up to now, we see some rather new movements among the drivers. Of course, in the first place, we have Lewis Hamilton in first place with 68 points, but he isn’t all that far ahead of his teammate who currently has a total of 62 points. Bottas in second in followed by Max Verstappen for the Red Bull team with 39 points and Sebastian Vettel followed with 37 points. Finally, the top five positions are completed with Charles Leclerc for Ferrari with a total of 36 points in total.
From those results, it seems impossible for anyone but Mercedes to take first and second place, but when it comes to third, fourth and fifth, we certainly see some exciting possibilities as Red Bull and Ferrari fight to hold onto a podium finish for 2019.