Hamilton winner of another crazy race in Baku!

Lewis Hamilton won an incredible Azerbaijan Grand Prix when he took control three laps from the finish after his teammate Valtteri Bottas suffered a puncture at high speed on the long start/finish straight.

Published on 29/04/2018 à 16:16

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Hamilton winner of another crazy race in Baku!

Lewis Hamilton finally achieved his first success of the year 2018, the first since Texas 2017, at the end of a crazy race, and while it was his teammate at Mercedes, Valtteri Bottas, who seemed set for victory before a puncture on the pit straight after driving over debris.

Before this final adventure, Bottas had just benefited from an intervention by the Safety Car in the last third of the event, the result of a fratricidal collision between the two drivers. Red Bull, to observe his only pit stop and emerge in the lead in front Sebastian Vettel.

Starting in pole position, the German Ferrari displayed total control before final packaging. Vettel tried to recover his property during the last re-start but the other quadruple world champion in the field blocked his wheels by diving inside Bottas and veered wide.

His teammate Räikkönen, involved in a collision with Esteban Ocon during the first lap, slipped in front, as did Pérez a few moments later. Vettel finally finished 4th and limited the damage to the world championship.

Carlos Sainz took a nice 5th place in front of a superb Charles Leclerc who enters the points for the first time in his young career with his Sauber. Hit by Sergey Sirotkin after only a few meters of running, Fernando Alonso surfs the race facts and climbs up to 7th position despite a damaged flat bottom.

Consolation for Williams, the British team opens its points counter in 2018 thanks to the nice 8th position of Lance stroll, While McLaren manages to place its two drivers in the Top 10 for the 3rd time of the season with Stoffel Vandoorne in 9th place. Brendon Hartley registered its first units in Formula 1 in a somewhat unexpected way by snatching 10th position to Toro Rosso.

Disappointment for Ocon, harpooned by Räikkönen in the first round and forced to retire, as well as for Romain Grosjean who had nevertheless made a nice comeback in the rankings. 6th a few laps from the finish, the Frenchman hit the wall under Safety Car regime.

Discover the full report and analysis of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondents in Baku, in AUTO issue 2163hebdo, available tomorrow evening in digital version and this Thursday on newsstands.