The Overview II

Vettel immediately pushed to establish a lead, towing Hamilton, Verstappen (up from fifth) and Ricciardo in his wake. However, Vettel’s brake balance was a bit off as he locked his fronts at the final chicane that allowed Hamilton to retake some ground. Then on the tenth lap, Button’s Honda McLaren lost engine power and developed a fire, setting up a Virtual Safety Car. Vettel’s lead had only reached 1.2-seconds.

Just as the VSC period was nearly over, Vettel screamed into the pits and changed his used ultrasoft Pirellis for a new set of supersofts; his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen repeated the strategy a few seconds later. Both Ferrari drivers had committed to a two-stop strategy.

Vettel fell to fourth, 11 seconds behind Hamilton, but he quickly set out to catch Hamilton. He had to get by Verstappen and Riccardo first but made easy work of it. By Lap 17, Vettel dived inside Ricciardo at the hairpin to seize third and then passed Verstappen using DRS on the back straight. He was now second, 9.7-seconds behind Hamilton.