What looked like a boring procession for the first 20 laps turned into a wild free-for-all in the latter portion of the race as Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo ultimately won the 2018 Chinese Grand Prix thanks to some help from his teammate Max Verstappen who crashed the pole-sitter, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel into non-contention and harassed primary contender Mercedes Lewis Hamilton off the podium. Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas ultimately finished second and Vettel’s Ferrari teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, finished third.
Vettel won the pole position for the race and for the first 20 laps, it appeared Vettel was going to win the race easily in a boring cakewalk – but that all changed after a pit stop put him behind Bottas and then a safety car after a crash between the two Toro Rosso cars put all the main contenders [and Verstappen] back into play, turning the final 25 laps into chaos that saw Verstappen crash into Vettel and receive a 10-second penalty for it. This allowed his teammate, Ricciardo to get a shot at Bottas, where Ricciardo overtook Bottas while Verstappen harassed Hamilton to keep him at bay in off-podium positions. Hamilton would eventually finish fourth while Vettel limped home in eighth.
With the results, Vettel still leads the driver standings with 54 points to Hamilton’s 45 points and Bottas in third with 40 points.
2018 Chinese Grand Prix Top 10
1 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:35:36.380
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes +8.894
3 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari +9.637
4 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +16.985
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull +20.436
6 Nico Hülkenberg Renault +21.052
7 Fernando Alonso McLaren +30.639
8 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari +35.286
9 Carlos Sainz Jr. Renault +35.763
10 Kevin Magnussen Haas +39.594