The race was scheduled to start at 15:10
local time (13:10
UTC) and was scheduled to last 67 laps with an upper time limit of 2 hours per the 2018 regulations.
Race report (pictured in his
car at the ) won the race. The race started in dry conditions, with a high chance of rain later in the race. As they went through turn 1 it was
Sebastian Vettel who led for
Ferrari followed by
Valtteri Bottas and
Kimi Räikkönen. Of the front runners, Räikkönen was the first to make a pitstop on lap 14 switching onto the soft tyres, Vettel and Bottas made their opening pitstops on laps 24 and 28 respectively. With the leaders on lap 29, the race saw its first retirement in the form of Ricciardo with what transpired to be power loss, this did not disrupt the rhythm of the race as his car was recovered quickly. On the same lap Ricciardo's teammate
Max Verstappen made his first pit stop. On lap 29, it was Räikkönen who led, followed by Vettel, Hamilton (yet to make his compulsory pitstop) and Bottas. After a couple of laps Vettel slowed down after complaining of overheating tyres from being with a couple of seconds behind Räikkönen and on lap 39 Räikkönen was told to let his teammate through. On lap 44, it started to rain and on the following lap
Fernando Alonso and
Charles Leclerc came into the pits to put on the
intermediate tyres and
Pierre Gasly changed to a set of
full wet tyres, all three admitted this was a mistake in post-race interviews. On lap 52, braking into turn 12, Vettel locked the rear brakes and went straight on into the barriers, taking himself out of the race, this caused a
safety car so that they could recover Vettel's car. As a result of the safety car Valtteri Bottas elected to make a pitstop, because of the late call
Mercedes did not have the tyres ready and Bottas was in his pitbox for almost 20 seconds (pitstops times are usually 2–3 seconds). Hamilton was also told to pit, he started to enter the pitlane before aborting the pitstop after a miscommunication with his engineer, Hamilton then cut back on to the track essentially cutting across the final corner. Räikkönen made a pitstop on the following lap onto the ultra soft tyres. before being told to "hold position". The stewards gave Hamilton a reprimand. The stewards justified their decision by saying that because Hamilton cut across the pit entry line in such a way that he did not present a danger to anyone and because the change of direction was carried out safely a reprimand would best reflect the severity of the infringement of the rules. Hamilton described his race win as a "dream" and said that he felt that this was a potential turning point in his championship campaign.
Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile, admitted that the crash which took him out of the race was his fault, but he said that overall he was happy with how the weekend had progressed as it appeared that
Ferrari still had the quickest car, something which
Mercedes team principal
Toto Wolff also picked up on. Another driver who had a strong performance was
Nico Hülkenberg who finished in seasons best position of fifth, a result which he admitted he was very happy with, his teammate
Carlos Sainz finished a disappointing twelfth, however on the whole
Renault were pleased with their result. Another team with mixed fortune were the
Haas cars,
Romain Grosjean and
Kevin Magnussen were among those who switched to intermediates and back again during the rain period and although Grosjean managed to get through the field from tenth to sixth in the closing laps his teammate Magnussen was unable to replicate this finishing eleventh, with team principal
Guenther Steiner appearing to be neither pleased nor disappointed with the result.
Brendon Hartley was also pleased with his result following a difficult first half of his season. His teammate,
Pierre Gasly however suffered from a poor strategy call causing him to finish fourteenth, although the team were neither pleased nor disappointed with their result team boss
Franz Tost said that the weekend gave them optimism for future Grands Prix after the team showed strong pace.
Force India were also very pleased with their performance with
Sergio Pérez finishing seventh, one place ahead of
Esteban Ocon who had started a disappointing fifteenth but finished eighth.
Red Bull had a mixed day with
Daniel Ricciardo retiring but with
Max Verstappen finishing in fourth, although there was a chance for them to finish on the podium Verstappen said that he felt positively about how the weekend had progressed.
Sauber also had a mixed day with
Marcus Ericsson finishing in the points but teammate
Charles Leclerc had a disappointing race coming last of the finishers in fifteenth.
Williams and
McLaren both had bad weekends, although both Williams' cars were running relatively well, poor reliability meant that both cars were forced to retire, the second and third retirements for the car all season, at McLaren meanwhile
Fernando Alonso also had to retire with mechanical problems and although teammate
Stoffel Vandoorne did manage to finish the race he still had a poor weekend with the team's sporting director
Gil de Ferran stating that he felt that the car and both drivers had the ability to finish in the points.
Race classification ;Notes • –
Carlos Sainz originally finished 10th, but received a 10-second penalty for overtaking under safety car conditions demoting him to 12th. • –
Fernando Alonso retired from the race, but was classified as he completed more than 90% of the race distance. ==Championship standings after the race==