Chinese GP | Lewis Hamilton takes his 75th career win, leads home a Mercedes 1-2
Hamilton got a great start and comfortably took the victory in Shanghai from Valtteri Bottas. After plenty of talking about team orders at Ferrari, Sebastian Vettel grabbed the final podium spot.
On the formation lap, both Max Verstappen and Robert Kubica spun. Verstappen managed to reclaim his position as he didn’t drop to the back of the field.
At the start, Hamilton got away beautifully and took the lead from Bottas. Leclerc also jumped Sebastian Vettel by getting up the inside of his German team-mate.
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Back down the grid, there was large contact between Kvyat and the two McLarens on the exit of the T6 hairpin. Both McLarens ended up with damage and had to pit which dropped them to the rear of the pack. Kvyat received a drive-through penalty for the incident.
Sergio Perez was the biggest winner on lap one as he gained four positions to find himself in P8. Kimi Raikkonen also worked his way up to P10 in the early stages.
Hamilton, Bottas, Leclerc, Vettel, Verstappen, Gasly, Ricciardo, Perez, Hulkenberg and Raikkonen was the top 10 in the opening laps.
Moments later, Leclerc was asked to let Vettel by and he did so into turn 1. The German struggled to pull away thanks to consistently locking up on his soft tyres. Vettel and Leclerc were lapping almost a second a lap slower than Hamilton at this stage.
Verstappen triggered the undercut on lap 17 – and it almost worked. Ferrari responded with Vettel a lap later and Verstappen got a run on him heading down into the turn 14 hairpin and made a lunge. However, he went a bit deep and the German got back in front.
The top 10 was Hamilton, Bottas, Vettel, Verstappen, Leclerc, Gasly, Ricciardo, Perez, Raikkonen and Grosjean after the first round of stops.
With Leclerc on 5-lap fresher tyres than Verstappen, Red Bull pitted the Dutchman to fit a fresh set of boots. It triggered stops from all the front runners – including the two Mercedes’ on the same lap.
In a rather flat 1000th race, Lewis Hamilton eased to a sixth win at this venue following a dominant performance. Bottas and Vettel completed the podium spots.
Verstappen, Vettel, Leclerc, Gasly, Ricciardo, Perez, Raikkonen and Alexander Albon, who started from the pitlane, filled the remaining points scoring positions. 
