Hamilton clinches victory as team mate suffers a tyre blowout at the most critical timing

Sebastian Vettel who started at pole position was about to achieve his third win this season only for the race to go completely haywire thanks to antics from the Red Bulls and Romain Grosjean. The most heartbreaking incident was when Valtteri Bottas suffered a tyre puncture just as he was leading the race which led to Lewis Hamilton clinching the win.

Having just pitted once, Bottas managed to overtake Vettel as the German overcommitted and out-braked which cost him several spots in the race. This led to Bottas and Hamilton overtaking Vettel. Bottas then accidentally rolled over debris which punctured his tyres.

Everything all started when the two Red Bulls were racing behind the race leaders. Verstappen and Ricciardo were both playing a game of cat and mouse, trying to outdo each other and trying to overtake one another only to crash which caused both cars to be out of the race. Ricciardo tried to use the slipstream from Verstappen to overtake him when Verstappen braked early causing Ricciardo to rear-end him.

That led to the safety car to be deployed and whilst the safety car was deployed Romain Grosjean decided to try to get more heat on his tyres to improve his grip only to make a mistake which caused him to crash his car into the wall.

“I was warming up my tyres and bumped into a switch that I’d moved by two positions. When I touched the brakes, the brake balance was locked rearward – it just locked the rear wheels and I spun,” said Grosjean in a post-race interview.

Sergio Perez was the surprise of the day clinching the final podium spot for Force India ahead of Sebastian Vettel. Rookie Charles Leclerc also came in sixth getting points for the first time for himself and Sauber Ferrari.

Here are the full standings from yesterday’s race.