Red Bull’s craft in Chinese game of F1 strategy conjures Daniel Ricciardo’s surprise victory

So, at the start of the season who would have put money on Red Bull winning a race before Mercedes?

Daniel Ricciardo, the surprise winner, had his own slightly off-the-wall answer: “Good job!” he beamed. “Pretty cool!” Then he laughed, and added, “Holy testicle Tuesday, that’s what I’d say. Awesome!”

Well, it takes all sorts, and the popular Australian had just demonstrated some staggering opportunism en route to his sixth victory.

The Chinese Grand Prix was always going to be a tactical race, thanks to Pirelli’s variation of tyre choices – the ultrasofts, softs and mediums – and that together with an incident on the 30th lap between the two Toro Rossos, delivered the dramatic victory to Ricciardo. But it was far from a clear-cut thing.

For the first 20 laps Sebastian Vettel seemed on course for a 2018 hat-trick after a superb start from pole position saw him squeeze team-mate Kimi Rakkinen going into the first corner. He was leading Valtteri Bottas’s Mercedes comfortably as Max Verstappen and the derailed Raikkonen kept an unhappy Lewis Hamilton down in fifth place.

But a superb early pit stop on the 19th lap, matched by peerless in- and out-laps, enabled Bottas to get ahead of the Ferrari when he got the undercut on Vettel, who pitted a lap later.

“The team told me I needed the best out-lap of my life,” Bottas said, and I knew it was possible to get the undercut if we got everything perfect, the entry to the pits, the stop, which was the best I’ve ever had with the team, and then switching the medium tyres on quickly. Our timing was perfect.”

Ferrari responded by keeping Raikkonen out long enough so that he could try and back Bottas into the pursuing Vettel when they came up to overtake him by the 26th lap, but when the older Finn finally pitted for medium tyres on the 27th lap, Bottas was still in control of Vettel even though he was nursing his right rear tyre.

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“Things were going pretty well for us and I thought we deserved the victory,” Bottas said on a day on which he outdrove Hamilton. “I felt like we had everything under control, and I think we could have done it.”

Fate decreed otherwise, however, in what became an extraordinary race.

On the 30th lap Pierre Gasly, the hero of Bahrain, collided in the Turn 14 hairpin at the end of the lap with his Toro Rosso team-mate Brendon Hartley. As both cars spun and debris littered the track, the safety car was deployed for five laps.

Red Bull reacted brilliantly. Having brought both cars in for medium tyres at the same time earlier in the race, and pulled it off, they boldly did the same thing again this time while the field was running slowly, switching them from mediums to the faster softs.

Mercedes, who had done such a good job with Bottas earlier on, now dropped the ball. They should have brought Hamilton in, and since he was running behind Verstappen that would have been possible, whereas it was not with Bottas who had already passed the pit entry lane. But they missed the chance, and it ruled their man out of contention for the win.

“Am I right that all the cars behind me are on fresh tyres?” Hamilton asked testily. When the race resumed on the 36th lap, it had a very different complexion.

Bottas was still in control, apparently headed for victory in his 100th grand prix. But Verstappen, on his fresher, softer-compound tyres, was soon pushing Hamilton for third place. He nearly got it on the 39th lap, but as the wold champion hung tough the Dutchman ran wide, crucially losing a place to his team-mate, who had seen it coming.

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Ricciardo soon overtook Hamilton on his older, harder tyres with a brilliant late move going into the hairpin on the 41st lap.

Then he set about cutting down the gap to second-placed Vettel and leader Bottas. He overtook the German on the 42nd lap, and then came the other big drama of the race. Verstappen had finally passed Hamilton on that 42nd lap, and tried to pass Vettel in the hairpin on the 43rd. But it was an over-ambitious move that spun both cars. Hamilton gained two places but immediately lost one as he had to go wide around the stricken Ferrari and Red Bull, while Raikkonen went down the inside of them and passed the Mercedes.

Now Ricciardo had Bottas in his sights, and he dived ahead of the Finn in a hugely dramatic move going into Turn 6 on the 45th lap.

“It was hectic!” he said of his race. “When we heard about the Safety Car I was in Turn 14 and they said, ‘Come, come, in the box, we are double stopping again.’ It was very decisive, the winning move from the team. That obviously gave us a good little bit of grip on the restart with the soft tyres, and they held up well and gave us wicked pace. Once I was aware we had that pace I wasn’t going to let that slip. Every win I’ve had seems to have been in similar circumstances, and it was crazy but a lot of fun!

“With Lewis, sometimes you just have to lick the stamp and send it. The soft tyre always gives you more under braking, and if you get one chance you take every opportunity.

“The overtake on Valtteri into Turn 6 was touch and go. It was close, hard but fair. I saw him defend and wanted to go shallower; he came a bit more, but I knew there would always be enough room and that the tyres had enough grip.

“After the turbo problem I had in the third practice session I thought I’d be starting the race at back. Instead the team were rewarded in the best way possible after all their hard work then.”

With the Red Bull now untouchable, the focus switched to Raikkonen’s pursuit of Bottas on his newer medium tyres, and Verstappen’s recovery on his softs. The Dutchman caught and repassed Hamilton on the 48th lap and passed his easily that time, and the three them ran hard to the flag without any of them being able to pull anything further out of the bag. But the Dutchman had incurred a 10s time penalty for his attack on Vettel, and that dropped him back behind Hamilton by the end.

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Vettel, meanwhile, had fallen off the cliff. The German was struggling with a damaged Ferrari after the Verstappen incident, and fell prey to Nico Hulkenberg’s well-driven Renault on the 44th lap, and then Fernando Alonso came hauling up behind him in his McLaren-Renault, brushing the Ferrari as he insouciantly snatched seventh place from the series leader with two laps to go.

A very disgruntled Vettel thus left China with 54 points, but though Hamilton closed to within nine points, he too was far from happy with the outcome.

“I was in no man’s land. I had no pace. I was just trying to hold on for whatever I had,” Hamilton said. ”Obviously, we’ve got a tough battle ahead of us, particularly on my side. I’ll say my side, but also us as a team, we’ve been underperforming.

“Yesterday and today have been a disaster on my side, so I’ve got to try and rectify that and get myself back into normal performance mode. Otherwise more valuable points will be lost. I’m thankful for a couple of incidents that happened ahead today, they kept us kind of in the battle.”