With both World Championship titles already decided, all eyes were on the other battles throughout the field, including the battle for runner up in the World Drivers’ Championship between Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas. Lewis Hamilton was set to start from the pit lane after crashing out of qualifying on his first flying lap.
There were early concerns for Kimi Räikkönen on the grid before the formation lap. But the concerns were for a weak signal from the car telemetry, rather than any mechanical failure. There was the potential that the team in the garage would lose access to the car’s telemetry at some point during the race.
At the start of the race, Sebastian Vettel was able to take the lead from Valtteri Bottas, overtaking the Mercedes on the inside of turn one. It was further back down the grid where the issues took place. Heading through the Senna S, Daniel Ricciardo found himself on the outside of a three-wide situation with Stoffel Vandoorne stuck in the middle and Kevin Magnussen on the inside. Vandoorne was pushed into Ricciardo, causing the Red Bull driver to spin across the track. Vandoorne and Magnussen retired, while Ricciardo was able to continue the race. The safety car was brought out while the marshals cleared the stricken vehicles.
That wasn’t the only first lap incident, as Esteban Ocon and Romain Grosjean made contact in turn eight. Grosjean was on the inside of Ocon, but suffered lots of oversteer that forced him to hit Ocon. Ocon was unable to resume the race, suffering the first retirement of his career. Grosjean was handed a ten second time penalty by the stewards for the incident.
The race was resumed after five laps of the safety car, the first runners were able to maintain their positions on the restart, while Hamilton and Ricciardo began to make their way through the rest of the field. By lap 21, Hamilton had made his way into the top five, while Ricciardo was within the top ten.
Bottas was the first of the leaders to pit for new tyres, triggering the undercut on the leading Ferrari. Vettel mirrored the following lap, which was necessary to maintain the lead position. He returned to the track just a few car lengths ahead of Bottas, but the Mercedes began to fall behind in the turbulent air in the laps that followed. Hamilton took the lead of the race, despite still needing to make a pit stop.
Hamilton pitted on lap 44 after having lost a lot time in to Vettel while passing through the traffic, but having built a large enough gap to Riccirado behind. Ricciardo pitted on the same lap as Hamilton.
After 60 laps and after a brief battle with Max Verstappen, Hamilton had made his way to P4 in the race and began to chase down the podium position from Kimi Räikkönen. He quickly got into DRS range of Räikkönen, allowing him to challenge Räikkönen in the closing stages of the race. But he just didn’t have the life left in the tyres to make any serious overtaking opportunities happen.
Vettel finished the race in the lead ahead of Bottas and Räikkönen. Hamilton was able to convert a pit lane start to a P4 finish, while Verstappen concludes the top five.
Above results table does not include any post-race penalties
