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In Azerbaijan, Vettel collided into the rear of race leader Hamilton under the safety car, accusing Hamilton of brake testing him. [130] Moments later, Vettel pulled alongside and hit his Mercedes as they prepared for a restart, for which he received a ten-second stop-go penalty. [131]
Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel was the defending race winner. [5] Lewis Hamilton started the race from pole – his seventh pole position in Australia, [6] a record for the event – while Vettel successfully defended his race win, the 48th of his career and stood on the podium for the 100th time.
Currently unsafe to Vettel.” Hamilton immediately responded with a 1min45.3s, to which his race engineer replied that they were happy with this pace. Rosberg protested on lap 35 that this pace is too slow for a late race safety car. With 18 laps remaining, Vettel pitted to take the super soft tyres.
The race stewards put the incident under investigation. Racing resumed on lap 20 with Felipe Massa moving up to third and pressurizing Vettel, but within a few corners, the Force Indias of Esteban Ocon and Sergio Pérez collided and left debris on the track. The collision gave Ocon a puncture and dropped him to the back of the field.
The top three remained the same throughout most of the race, Hamilton taking the lead briefly between Bottas' earlier pit-stop and his own pit-stop. Bottas won the race. Hamilton finished in close second place, with Vettel finishing third. Ricciardo's retirement was significant in handing the fourth place in the Drivers' Championship to ...
Hamilton had been closely following Vettel until turn three of lap 48, when Vettel went straight on over the grass, missing turn four. As the Ferrari re-joined the track, Hamilton was squeezed towards the outside wall and was forced to slow down to avoid a collision. A lap later, Verstappen was the last of the front-runners to make a pit stop ...
Hamilton came into the race with a 66-point lead over Vettel and requiring a fifth-place finish to claim his fourth world title. Sebastian Vettel needed to outscore Hamilton by 17 points to keep the championship fight alive.
The safety car was withdrawn at the end of the 37th lap and racing resumed with Hamilton in first. [41] Hamilton set the race's fastest lap of 1 minute and 50.417 seconds on lap 39 to lead Vettel by 5.8 seconds. [39] Sutil's car developed a water leak and retired two laps later to prevent the risk of an engine failure. [44]