Lewis Hamilton won the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix in dramatic fashion to claim his first victory of the season as well as his first win in Baku. Kimi Raikkonen for Ferrari and Sergio Perez for Force India completed the podium in second and third respectively, but that far from tells the full story of what was a crazy race.
At the start, polesitter Sebastian Vettel got away well and led going into turn 1. However, team-mate Raikkonen was involved in a collision with Force India driver Esteban Ocon (it was disputable as to who was at fault), forcing the latter into a retirement as well as causing a Safety Car (SC) to be deployed. Further behind, Williams driver Sergey Sirotkin made contact with the rear of Perez's car, which caused him to retire and earned himself a 3-place grid penalty for the next race in Barcelona, as well as 2 penalty points on his Super Licence (because he was deemed fully at fault for the collision). Marcus Ericsson of Sauber and Kevin Magnussen of Haas also made contact going into turn 2, which earned Ericsson a 10-second time penalty. McLaren's Fernando Alonso was also involved in contact with Sirotkin, who got squeezed by one of the Renault drivers. Alonso got 2 punctured tyres, but somewhat miraculously made it back to the pitlane. At this point, the top 8 was: Vettel, Hamilton, Bottas, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Sainz, Stroll and Hulkenberg.
The SC came in at the end of lap 5. Hamilton accused the leader Vettel of breaking the rules behind the SC before the restart, saying he was slowing down and speeding up repeatedly. The F1 sporting regulations say: "In order to avoid the likelihood of accidents before the safety car returns to the pits, from the point at which the lights on the car are turned out drivers must proceed at a pace which involves no erratic acceleration or braking nor any other manoeuvre which is likely to endanger other drivers or impede the restart." Anyway, not long after the restart, Max Verstappen got past Daniel Ricciardo for fourth place, with Ricciardo also losing out to the Renault of Carlos Sainz. Vettel was really opening the gap out at the front as Hamilton struggled with getting the tyres up to temperature. Sainz managed to get past Verstappen for fourth, with the Dutchman (Verstappen) at this point struggling with battery-charging, with Hulkenberg getting past Verstappen as well as Ricciardo, who was also struggling with battery charging issues - the issue seemed to sort itself out soon after in the race. Verstappen also seemed to be struggling with tyre temperatures at this point.
On lap 12, Hulkenberg suffered a moment of oversteer and hit the wall which caused him to retire from the race. Verstappen did eventually manage to get back past Sainz for fourth, who pitted not long after. On lap 22, Hamilton suffered a massive lock-up going into turn 1 and had to go along the run-off area. The lock-up damaged his tyres severely, to the point that he had to pit at the end of lap 22, which was certainly not ideal.
On lap 30, Vettel pitted from the lead and switched onto the soft tyres. Bottas decided to stay out and was leading the race. Actually, his pace on the super-soft tyres at this point was quite good, and he managed to maintain a relatively consistent gap to Vettel of around 12s, as Bottas was lapping at around the same pace as Vettel - could it have been - could it be tht Vettel was struggling to get the soft tyres to work properly? Ricciardo managed to get past Verstappen for fourth, and pitted on lap 38 for a set of ultra-softs, with team-mate Verstappen pitting on the next lap, but somehow managing to re-emerge ahead of the Aussie (Ricciardo).
On lap 40, Ricciardo tried to get back past Verstappen, however, it resulted in disaster as he ended up running into the back of Verstappen, though it is certainly arguable that Verstappen changed direction more than once. Both got reprimanded by the FIA for the incident. The SC was deployed once again, which actually proved to be a lifeline for Bottas, who unbelievably was able to pit and re-emerge in the lead ahead of Vettel. Vettel, Hamilton and Raikkonen then decided to switch onto the ultra-soft tyres. The top 10 at this point was: Bottas, Vettel, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Perez, Grosjean, Sainz, Leclerc, Stroll and Alonso. On lap 43, whilst in SC conditions, Grosjean inexplicably crashed into the wall whilst weaving to get heat into the tyres, which caused the SC to stay out longer.
The SC came in at the end of lap 47. Bottas managed to get a good restart. Vettel tried to overtake going into turn 1 but locked up and ended up going down the run-off area, and lost out to Hamilton, Raikkonen and Perez. However, if you thought that the drama was over at that point, then you were completely mistaken, as unbelievably as well as extremely unfortunately, with 3 laps to go, Bottas ran over a piece of debris and got a puncture. This meant that Hamilton inherited the lead which he maintained till the finish to win his first race of the season. Perez, managed to finish on the podium for the first time since the 2016 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, whilst Leclerc earned his first points in F1 with a remarkable drive to sixth, earning himself Driver of the Day award. Toro Rosso driver Brendon Hartley, meanwhile, earned his first point in Formula 1 with a tenth-place finish. Kevin Magnussen got penalised 10 seconds after the race for causing a collison with Pierre Gasly.
Classification:
Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari
Sergio Perez - Force India-Mercedes
Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari
Carlos Sainz - Renault
Charles Leclerc - Sauber-Ferrari
Fernando Alonso - McLaren-Renault
Lance Stroll - Williams-Mercedes
Stoffel Vandoorne - McLaren-Renault
Brendon Hartley - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Marcus Ericsson - Sauber-Ferrari
Pierre Gasly - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Kevin Magnussen - Haas-Ferrari
Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes (was classified having completed over 90% of the race distance)
Did not finish the race and thus not classified: Romain Grosjean, Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen, Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon and Sergey Sirotkin.
World Championship classification:
Lewis Hamilton - 70 points
Sebastian Vettel - 66 points
Kimi Raikkonen - 48 points
Valtteri Bottas - 40 points
Daniel Ricciardo - 37 points
Fernando Alonso - 28 points
Nico Hulkenberg - 22 points
Max Verstappen - 18 points
Sergio Perez - 15 points
Carlos Sainz - 13 points
Pierre Gasly - 12 points
Kevin Magnussen - 11 points
Charles Leclerc - 8 points
Stoffel Vandoorne - 8 points
Lance Stroll - 4 points
Marcus Ericsson - 2 points
Esteban Ocon - 1 point
Brendon Hartley - 1 point
Romain Grosjean - 0 points
Sergey Sirotkin - 0 points
Constructors' Championship classification:
Ferrari - 114 points
Mercedes - 110 points
Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer - 55 points
McLaren-Renault - 36 points
Renault - 35 points
Force India-Mercedes - 16 points
Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda - 13 points
Haas-Ferrari - 11 points
Sauber-Ferrari - 10 points
Williams-Mercedes - 4 points