In China, Ricciardo showed Verstappen how it’s done

What you need to know:

  • Fortune favours the brave and so it was that the decision to pit the Red Bulls for soft tyres under the Safety Car, perform a double change for teammates Max Verstappen and Ricciardo, led to the first win of the season for Red Bull.
  • Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel started on pole, with his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, completing the front row. Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas was keen to split the Ferraris as soon as he could and gained the advantage by the first turn, overtaking Raikkonen, who had been squeezed to the inside by Vettel who was defending his lead.

Teachers like top students but there is something magnetic, an extra flair about a genius student. Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix perfectly exemplified that.

Ferrari and Mercedes were the overwhelming favourites to sweep the podium places at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday, but none of the teams was prepared for what Red Bull had up their sleeves during the race.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo drove brilliantly to emerge the winner after a memorable race that was as unpredictable as it was exciting.

Fortune favours the brave and so it was that the decision to pit the Red Bulls for soft tyres under the Safety Car, perform a double change for teammates Max Verstappen and Ricciardo, led to the first win of the season for Red Bull.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel started on pole, with his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, completing the front row. Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas was keen to split the Ferraris as soon as he could and gained the advantage by the first turn, overtaking Raikkonen, who had been squeezed to the inside by Vettel who was defending his lead.

From fifth position, Verstappen was able to leapfrog Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Raikkonen before the end of the first lap.

By the third lap, Vettel had already consolidated his lead to 2.6 seconds over Bottas.

Among the leading cars, Red Bull chose to pit first, bringing in Verstappen and Ricciardo at the same time for a set of mediums.

Mercedes responded to the move, Hamilton getting into the pit stop first, and then Bottas a lap later.

Vettel stayed out but only just. That extended stay on the track however was enough for Bottas to overtake the German in scintillating fashion as the Ferrari was exiting the pits.

Bottas had managed to wipe off a deficit of more than two seconds to effectively take the lead of the race, even though Raikkonen was leading the race at that point.

Raikkonen was then used as Vettel’s wingman to obstruct Bottas in a bid to give the lead back to Vettel. Bottas overtook Raikkonen on the 27th lap.

Vettel had an easy pass on his teammate who let him through and for a while stayed in the dirty air of the Mercedes.

Bottas, however, was able to open a comfortable gap that denied Vettel the chance to use DRS. By the 30th lap, Hamilton was 7.7 seconds behind Vettel.

On that same lap, the Toro Rossos of Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley came into contact when Gasly run into his teammate while attempting an ambitious overtake.

The collision resulted in debris which brought out the Safety Car.

Quick thinking Red Bull brought in both their drivers for another double pit stop for softs which was excellently executed, while Ferrari and Mercedes were content to have their drivers battle it out to the end of the race on mediums.

When the race resumed with 21 laps to go, Bottas was comfortably in the lead. Vettel was in hot pursuit of the Finn and behind the German was Hamilton.

With fresher tyres, the Red Bulls had a clear pace advantage and the two drivers were keen to maximise on that. Ricciardo overtook Raikkonen to get behind his teammate, who was catching up with Hamilton.

Verstappen’s attempt to pass Hamilton on the 39th lap on a fast corner backfired as he was forced to steer right and go off the track to avoid a collision.

For that mistake, he lost position to his teammate. Two laps later, Ricciardo showed Verstappen how it’s done by performing his trademark move, diving from ‘miles’ away into a turn, on Hamilton.

In the next lap, Ricciardo passed Vettel and set his sights on Bottas. Verstappen attempted to overtake Vettel on the 43rd lap and hit the German causing the two to spin and lose positions to Hamilton and Raikkonen.

Ricciardo was not done with fun and pace, putting in his most daring move of the afternoon to get ahead of Bottas.

The Finn had not given the Australian much space to work with but Ricciardo’s bravery saw him squeeze past and head on for a famous win. For hitting Vettel, Verstappen was given a ten-second penalty which negated the thrill he felt after overtaking Hamilton since that eventually counted for nothing.

Even with the ten-second penalty, however, Verstappen managed to finish ahead of Vettel and the German had to settle for eighth after being overtaken by Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg and McLaren’s Fernando Alonso.

After three races, Hamilton is nine points behind championship leader, Vettel, with the top five drivers separated by less than 25 points.