Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes-Benz F1 W08 Hybrid at Formula One World Championship in Shanghai, China © Sutton Motorsport Images
Lewis Hamilton’s dominant driving style and sheer precision guided him to his 54th career victory, a whopping 6.2 seconds ahead of Sebastian Vettel’s Prancing Horse. The Brit led all the way, securing pole position in qualifying and never missed a beat on track. This is his third Formula 1 Grand Slam and he is now level for podium places with the great Alain Prost. This had to be one of the most unpredictable race weekends with practice two being cancelled after the medical helicopter was grounded and the ever present threat of showers looked like it was going to linger into Sunday afternoon’s race.
Come race day however, the weather had cleared but there were still visible wet spots in the corners — evident from Max Verstappen’s on board camera, as the Dutch racing driver expertly manoeuvred his car from 16th place to 7th in the opening lap, of what was to prove his best race yet. He subsequently overtook his more experienced teammate, Daniel Ricciardo to finish the race third. He said “It was a very challenging race but I really enjoyed it. I think I overtook nine cars in the opening lap so it was a very good race for me. I did not have a lot of track time this weekend because I didn’t do much in qualifying so I wasn’t expecting to finish on the podium having started in 16th place.”
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, Mercedes’ AMG F1 Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen on the podium at the Shanghai Grand Prix 2017. © Sutton Motorsport Images
As the weekend geared up, Daniel Ricciardo was seen in Hong Kong skipping rope in Causeway Bay, wandering around feasting on dim sum. Lewis Hamilton on the other hand, was seen on a rooftop in Macau against the spectacular Macau’s night skyline about to board a helicopter and then again in Beijing with singer JJ Lin, learning calligraphy, eventually getting new ink which he proudly showed off to his Chinese fans. Mercedes AMG celebrated their 50 years, launching the GT R in China with Lewis Hamilton on Saturday night in Shanghai.
That’s a wrap of the Shanghai weekend, next weekend is Bahrain and we bring you all the racing highlights along with the luxury inside scoop of the first Middle East pitstop.
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