Summing up the Chinese Grand Prix in memes – essentiallysports.com

The Chinese Grand Prix ended earlier today with Lewis Hamilton as the winner. But everyone was talking about Max Verstappen’s brilliant recovery drive from 17th to finish 3rd. There were other things as well that caught our attention. If you missed the race, here are the highlights in the form of memes.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton was notoriously well known for making poor starts. But for this race, they seem to have got to the bottom of the issues. He had a clean start which was rare in 2016 and made the most of it by winning with a clean strategy. The race victory, his first in 2017 had even his former team mate congratulating him:

Lewis Hamilton dominated the proceedings with Vettel and Verstappen joining him on the podium after insane battles

Williams driver Lance Stroll brought out a Virtual Safety Car after getting tagged by Sergio Perez. Romain Grosjean prolonged it by spinning on the main straight. But Antonio Giovinazzi went one better after teammate Marcus Ericsson went wide and distracted Gio. The Italian spun and smashed into the wall, forcing the other drivers to follow the Safety Car in the pits so that the marshals could clear up the track.

Despite some heroic efforts from Fernando Alonso, both McLaren Hondas did not survive long enough to see the chequered flag. Alonso was running in the top 10 when he was forced to retire from the race. Stoffel Vandoorne did not feature much in the race and retired quietly. Despite not finishing the race (what made Alonso’s first DNF in Shanghai), Alonso was mighty pleased with his performance and so were his fans considering he managed to make the most of his dead Honda McLaren challenging for points until the unfortunate retirement happened. 

Max Verstappen had a storming start and was already up into the top 10 by lap 1. A clever strategy and a few stunning overtakes later, he found himself on the podium. The driver of the race and for more than quite a few reasons. His start had him overtaking 9 cars straight which was probably why he was able to take advantage of the virtual safety car and then the safety car. He put a ballsy move on his team mate, Daniel Ricciardo and did mighty well to get himself on top of the podium. 

While all the action was happening at the front, Kevin Magnussen quietly snuck into the points and finished the race in P8 and 4 well deserved points for the Haas F1 team.