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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
John Brewin

Hamilton wins Bahrain Grand Prix after Grosjean survives huge crash - as it happened

Romain Grosjean escapes to safety after his Haas split in two and burst into flames.
Romain Grosjean escapes to safety after his Haas split in two and burst into flames. Photograph: Kamran Jebreili/EPA

Here’s Giles Richards’ report.

Updated

Reminder of the events that began the race.

The final positions.

Lewis Hamilton speaks before the ceremonials.

[The Grosjean crash] was such a shocking image to see. When I get in the car I know I am tasking risks. It is horrifying. I am so grateful the halo worked, and that the barrier didn’t slice his head off or something. This is a dangerous sport and why we are pushing it to the limy. You also have to respect it.

[The race]It was really was physical, very demanding. That 45 to an hour break, it’s easy to step out the zone...they [Red Bull] had a lot of speed. I was definitely feeling it. I was siding around. I am massively grateful, and mainly to my team, to get a result like this.

Hamilton celebrates with his physiotherapist Angela Cullen
Hamilton celebrates with his physiotherapist Angela Cullen Photograph: Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters

Updated

The Red Bull pair in second and third speak.

The fireworks go off in the Bahraini night sky, and as Hamilton climbs from his car to celebrate. He punches the air but not too aggressively as he fistbumps Alex Albon, who sneaked into third.

Updated

“That was a tough race, guys,” says Lewis Hamilton. “Great job.”

Lewis Hamilton wins the Bahrain Grand Prix!

The safety car sees them home. It’s a 95th win after his 98th pole, but it’s an occasion that will be remembered for Romain Grosjean’s horrific crash, from which he thankfully escaped with minor injuries. Hamilton wins, but Red Bull celebrate having Verstappen and Albon in second and third.

Lewis Hamilton is congratulated by his pit crew
Lewis Hamilton is congratulated by his pit crew Photograph: Tolga Bozoğlu/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

57/57 One of the marshalls is seen running across the track by Lando Norris’ on-board camera. That was foolhardy, especially considering what happened earlier. This race is done. Verstappen will get the extra point.

56/57 Hamilton wanted to come in to change his tyres but his team tell him not to bother. There will be no attempt for a fastest lap.

Hamilton leads in Bahrain
Hamilton leads in Bahrain Photograph: Kamran Jebreili/EPA

Updated

55/57 It’s a safety car, and that will probably be that. The race comes to a close. There are head in hands among the Racing Point team as Perez’s car has let them down. Racing Point also lost Lance Stroll to that prang early doors.

54/57 Sparks flying from Ricciardo’s car. Does he have something hanging down from his car? But there is smoke coming from Perez’s car in third. Albon, who has been sat off him, comes in. Perez’s car is up in smoke. Looks like a turbo has gone up in smoke.

Updated

53/57 Ricciardo now has Gasly in his sights for seventh, and Bottas may do too. Gasly seems unsure whether his tyres will make it through as he speaks to his team.

Updated

52/57 Perhaps unsurprisingly, Romain Grosjean is winning this poll. Meanwhile, Carlos Sainz overtakes Gasly, whose tyres may well be fading fast.

51/57 Perez asks if his Racing Point team are awake. It’s turned into that sort of race after all that excitement at the start.

50/57 Gasly will not be pitting as he seeks to hold on to sixth place, on the advice of his Alpha team.

49/57 Will Hamilton pit for a chance to take the fastest lap? He has the leeway to do do so.

48/57 The lead is 27 seconds, as Verstappen found himself in heavy traffic as he came out of the pits. There is a suspicion he may have had a slight tyre problem but an extra point will be good for Red Bull and perhaps his chance of overtaking Bottas.

Verstappen hits traffic as he makes a pitstop
Verstappen hits traffic as he makes a pitstop Photograph: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Updated

47/57 Ten laps to go, and Hamilton serene in his mastery of this occasion.

46/57 Hamilton’s lead is up to five seconds now, just about and so Verstappen pits, chasing a fastest lap, perhaps. That brings an extra point. He stays ahead of Perez, by four seconds, and is now over 22 seconds behind Hamilton now.

45/57 Gasly takes on Norris for fifth place, and that’s the hottest battle out there for the moment. Gasly’s Alpha team have a conundrum over tyres. At the back, Vettel is chasing down George Russell. It’s been another bad day for Ferrari.

44/57 Bottas goes on the inside, and speeds away from Ocon to take ninth. The Finn has gone a small way to reclaiming some pride from his disastrous day. He started the day in second, let us recall.

43/57 Lewis Hamilton has now led 600 laps of the season, with two more races to go. That’s beyond dominant from both him and his Mercedes car.

42/57 Hamilton’s lead is 3.4 seconds on Verstappen, opening out a fraction or two.

41/57 Sainz swiftly overtakes Leclerc, who then goes into the pits and drops into 12th.

Updated

40/57 Sainz comes into the pits in his McClaren, and he squeals in rage when he comes out and Leclerc is a place ahead in eighth.

39/57 Norris pits, thus dropping from fourth, which goes to Alex Albon. Perez is back up to third; he’s had quite a decent day of it in the Racing Point.

38/57 Between 10th and 11th, the second Charlatans album, and also the battle of the two Renault cars of Ocon and Ricciardo, with Ocon holding tenth. The latter is the driver staying next season and he does a good job of defending himself against the Australian, until eventually letting him past.

37/57 Perez, who doesn’t have a drive for next season, goes into the pits and his sojourn in second didn’t last long. He drops to fifth and Verstappen is in second place again.

36/57 Hamilton pits, and still leads. He has managed to retire the set of tyres that he had been getting a little annoyed with. There’s just a second of advantage over Perez, but that won’t last.

35/57 Change of strategy from Verstappen and Red Bull? It’s a misfire as the pit stop took over five seconds, rather than two. Perez is in second. Hamilton is almost 24 seconds clear of Perez.

Perez in action
Perez in action Photograph: Tolga Bozoğlu/EPA

Updated

34/57 Verstappen still has the fastest lap but Hamilton is so used to leading these races that there is surely not much of a way back barring something very odd happening.

33/57 Hamilton’s lead back over five seconds. Verstappen is trying his best to stay in touch, and a second place would help him on the way to second place overall in the championship with Bottas struggling today.

32/57 Bottas, back in 11th, seems to have a touch of the grumps, as he takes on Leclerc and claims tenth from the Monegasque tyro.

31/57 Vettel is up to 15th, having overtaken Raikkonen. Will it improve his mood? Unlikely.

30/57 Sainz, Ricciardo and Ocon, for sixth, seventh, eighth, is a battle taking place as Hamilton’s lead goes over five seconds. Norris is in fifth. Verstappen sets a fastest lap.

29/57 Hamilton using the outer limits of the track a bit too much? That seems to be what Verstappen’s team are telling him. Some confusion over whether that is allowed.

28/57 Perhaps the keenest race is Alex Albon and Perez for the race for third.

27/57 And the gap goes out a couple of tenths of a second between the front two.

26/57 Sainz takes Ricciardo to climb into seventh, and will chase down Ocon. Perez is 19 seconds plus off Verstappen in second. This is a two-horse race, though one of the horses is way ahead of the other. Hamilton is maintaining his lead by just over four seconds.

25/57 Lando Norris uses his DRS to speed past Bottas on the straight and claim sixth place. Bottas has not been having much fun at all.

24/57 Charles Leclerc looks to be pootling along in his Ferrari, with none of the usual élan. Perhaps he is suffering the same issues as the still vexed Vettel, who is 17th now. Verstappen is cutting into that Hamilton lead, but just fractionally.

23/57 Sounds like Verstappen wants to go for this one, according to the word from his garage. And he sets a fastest lap, as if to confirm his intent. The gap is under five seconds.

22/57 Verstappen and Perez both pit and Hamilton is back to the front again. Verstappen is back in second. Carlos Sainz is in third, but only briefly as Gasly overtakes when the Spaniard pits, and he drops to 11th. Perez is back in fourth.

Lewis Hamilton leads the pack
Lewis Hamilton leads the pack Photograph: Bryn Lennon/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

21/57 Hamilton is on the medium tyres. Ricciardo has a dig at Antonio Giovinazzi and is allowed through to get 11th. Vettel goes in, complaining again about his car.

20/57 In goes Hamilton, and for a decent Mercedes pit stop. Verstappen is ahead, and Perez is in second. Hamilton lurks with intent in third.

19/57 Hamilton has said he has been getting vibrations in his tyres, and will go in when five seconds or so clear of Verstappen.

18/57 Renault, of Ocon and Ricciardo, have both changed their tyres. Hamilton is set to do the same.

17/57 Raikkonen and Bottas is the battle of the moment with all pretty serene at the front.

16/57 Raikkonen has George Russell in his sights, with the lack of grip seemingly not too much of a problem for him.

15/57 Verstappen is losing more time on Hamilton. A showdown between them looking less likely. Raikkonen’s front wing sparking away, and no sign he will be coming in yet. Bottas is behind him in 14th.

14/57 Hamilton continues to hold the fastest lap, and is 2.416 up on Verstappen. Kimi Raikkonen has a damaged front wing meanwhile in 13th.

13/57 Kyvat has been given a ten-second penalty for that Stroll incident. Vettel is back in 18th and telling his team his car is not fit for purpose. Kevin Magnussen, in the other Haas, is overheating.

12/57 Sainz pulls off a spectacular overtaking of Leclerc, who battles back and then finds himself hard braking and being overtaken by Ricciardo. Sainz and Leclerc could be fun next season.

11/57 Bottas is not happy, as he battles over 15th with Vettel, a battle that should be up the front. Verstappen complains to his garage too. “My car is bouncing all over the place.”

Updated

10/57 This is real racing, and Leclerc may be under investigation for a clash with Kyvat, though that is swiftly altered, and it seems Kyvat is being looked at for his clash with Stroll.

9/57 We are racing, as the green light flashes. Hamilton flies away. Leclerc and Ocon clash, and Ocon holds off Leclerc to hold on to sixth. Ricciardo has a dig at Leclerc, but he ends up losing his eighth place to Sainz. Hamilton already leads by a second.

8/57 The end of this lap will be the completion of the safety car’s duties.

7/57 The safety car rolls on, and the drivers jockey for position, trying to warm their tyres. Seems to be debris out there, and that caused Bottas his problems.

6/57 We are still in safety car mode. It seems like Vettel’s rage was directed at Charles Leclerc, his teammate, rather than Lance Stroll. They only have two more races together, so no point in hiding true feelings, perhaps.

Updated

5/57 Kevin Magnusson, the other Haas driver, lost his front wing and has had to come in to get a new one. It’s all happening. “Lance is fine,” says the head of Racing Point, who are now a man down after Stroll’s prang.

Updated

4/57 It took a while for Stroll to get out of his cockpit and the safety car is back in session. Bottas has a puncture, and is coming in, and drops down to 16th. It looks like Stroll and Vettel clashed, and Vettel is complaining to his people in the garage. He doesn’t sound happy.

PA Media report on that Grosjean incident.

Updated

Back underway we go...but another crash..

3/57 Hamilton speeds away, Perez and Verstappen clash. Ricciardo drops back to tenth. Bottas attempts to get after Perez and gets past Albon. Lance Stroll has spun off again. Another accident, he’s upside down. “I’m ok,” he says on the radio, and climbs out. Nothing quite as spectacular as before but he came off the kerb, and turned over.

Hamilton leads the pack during the second start
Hamilton leads the pack during the second start Photograph: Hamad I Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images
Lance Stroll’s car tumbles
Lance Stroll’s car tumbles Photograph: Giuseppe Cacace/EPA
Stroll’s car spins upside down
Stroll’s car spins upside down Photograph: Giuseppe Cacace/EPA
Stroll escapes unhurt
Stroll escapes unhurt Photograph: Giuseppe Cacace/AP

Updated

It will be a standing start after the safety car enters the pits. The cars get in position for the start. We will begin on the third lap.

Ok, we are just about ready to get back underway as the cars leave the pit lane. The engines are revving, and they go off in a line. Bottas, in fourth, has had a bit of lucj. He was in sixth when the red flag came down. Verstappen is second now, and we may get to see a race between him and Hamilton.

The race is due to start at 18.35 local time - that’s in under ten minutes’ time, though many of the drivers are sat off at the side. There will be a redrawn grid, and a standing start, with Valtteri Bottas, who had lost places off the original start, dropped down to fourth.

Updated

Lewis Hamilton is on his scooter back to the grid, but has made his feelings on that crash clear on Twitter.

Alan van der Merwe, the F1 medical driver, one of those first on the scene.

It was a big surprise. I have never seen so much fire. We took a moment or so to process. Romain stated getting out, which was amazing after an accident like that. There was some relief when we got back here and he was OK. Everything worked as it should. Without one of those things, it could have been a very different outcome.

Updated

The car, or what is left of it, is being put on the back of a truck. Good luck with getting that ready for next week’s Sakhir GP.

The wreckage of Romain Grosjean’s car is removed.
The wreckage of Romain Grosjean’s car is removed. Photograph: Hamad I Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Speculation from Sky’s coverage is that the fuel supply from tank to engine blew up rather than the tank itself. Seems plausible but there will be a long inquest into this incident. It would seem a collision of many factors, but there was fortune in Grosjean staying conscious. There seems to have been melted plastic all over his visor too.

Some concrete blocks are being put in place of the demolished barrier, from which the wreckage is blocking a service road. This looks the type of job that should take a couple of days rather than 45 minutes.

Updated

A reminder that there is due to be a GP staged here next week, and there may need to be work done on that barrier. How did this happen? Watching back the footage from the cockpit, it seems Grosjean has swerved away from the debris caused by that incident involving Lance Stroll, and lost control. Perhaps. It’s not conclusive at this point. The crane is out to lift the wreckage away from the scene.

Updated

Grosjean is on the way to hospital, and with suspected broken ribs. The state of the car he escaped from: for want of a better description, it looks like a bomb has gone off. A truly shocking incident.

Updated

Per ESPN: “The Halo is a titanium structure that sits above the car’s cockpit to protect the driver’s head from flying debris. A single vertical pylon supports the structure in front of the driver and the hoop above the cockpit is mounted to the car’s survival cell and cockpit surround.”

Word from the Haas garage is that Grosjean has minor burns on his hands and ankles.

Günter Steiner, head of Haas, speaks.

The latest is that he is ok, I don’t want to make any medical diagnosis. He is shaken. The marshalls and the FIA people did such a great job. On the barrier, it’s unbelievable. He seems to be doing good. He got away with it, I think. It looked like he was moving across, I have just seen the footage you have seen,

The oxyacetylene torch is out as the barrier is being removed, cut down, with workers digging . It’s a bloody mess down there. Honestly. There are tears in the Haas garage. Jean Todt, head honcho, goes to thank the medical team. There will be a 45-minute delay here, minimum, it has been announced.

The replays of the incident are, frankly, shocking. How did he get out of that one?

Updated

There will be a lengthy delay as the barriers need repairing. Over the other side is a burnout tyre from Grosjean’s Haas.

A replay of the incident saw the car split in half, having gone through the barrier. It seems miraculous that Grosjean, who made a quick escape, is close to OK. That was truly shocking. He was helped from the scene by two volunteers, who were lucky themselves not to have been hit by the exploding car. “Extraordinary,” says Martin Brundle.

It may take some time for the race to restart, and all the mechanics rush back to a reformed grid. Grosjean seems OK but he is limping. His career was due to finish at the end of the season but may well have come to premature end. At least he is safe.

Updated

We wait for news on Grosjean. The word is that he’s out of the car already. Grosjean crashed into Daniil Kvyat and came off. Thankfully, there are shots of him looking alive and well in the medical car. Phew. The explosion was spectacular, like those we recall with some dread from the bad old days. Also thankfully, the protection is far greater for drivers.

Updated

A horrific crash on the third turn. Race stopped immediately

1/57. Hamilton gets away well, as does Verstappen who takes second. Bottas loses four places. Lance Stroll crashes off and there’s a huge explosion as someone crashes into the barriers. It’s one of the Haas cars...there’s a red flag. It’s Romain Grosjean, and the race stops.

Romain Grosjean crashes his Formula One car and it snaps in half.
Romain Grosjean crashes his Formula One car and it snaps in half. Photograph: Sky Sports
Flames seen from the crash scene after Haas’ Romain Grosjean crashed out at the start of the race
Flames seen from the crash scene after Haas’ Romain Grosjean crashed out at the start of the race Photograph: Kamran Jebreili/Reuters
Romain Grosjean is pictured on a screen escaping his crash.
Romain Grosjean is pictured on a screen escaping his crash. Photograph: Peter Fox/Getty Images
Grosjean is helped to walk away by medical officers.
Grosjean is helped to walk away by medical officers. Photograph: Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters
Stewards and medics attend to Grosjean next to one half of his car.
Stewards and medics attend to Grosjean next to one half of his car. Photograph: Hamad I Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Hamilton, on his tenth pole of the season, leads the field out on their formation lap. The mechanics sprint off to the garages.

Updated

The drivers are in their cars, ready for the parade lap. Hamilton, up at the pointy end, looks typically determined. It is, of course, nighttime in the desert.

Updated

Lewis Hamilton speaks.

We’ve got this different surface, it’s all medium and high speed. It kills the tyres, so you have to keep the temp low or they drop off on you. It’s a two-stop, maybe a three-stpp. Its one of the most challenging circuits. Thee’s very long straight, tactics will be important. A lot of people will be on medium. We will all want to get to the hard tyres as they are the most resilient. Everyone is going to be sliding around. You will see a lot of overtaking here.

Under a blood red sky, to quote Bongo, The Hedge, plus Bruce and Rick.

The cars are now on the grid with the mechanics putting in the final touches. Charles Leclerc, who has had a mixed season, is sat off to the side and in contemplation.

Updated

Memory lane: here’s what happened in last year’s race, one that took place earlier in the calendar.

There is a deeper context to this race being staged in Bahrain, and Lewis Hamilton has again not shirked the issues at hand.

A musical interlude. George Harrison, the beatific Beatles who devoted much of his life to transcendental meditation, was also a huge petrolhead. He also wrote Tax Man and Piggies, so he was a mass of differences.

Preamble

Procession moves on, the shouting is over, but Lewis Hamilton wants to win this one. Why? Just because he can, and there’s history in the offing. More history, that is. He is going for his fourth win at the Bahrain International Circuit, having claimed his 98th pole position, while he is chasing a 95th win in Formula One. As is customary, he will be accompanied by Valtteri Bottas on the front of the grid, the 11th time that’s happened this season, with Max Verstappen in third. The rest, frankly, are playing for place money, with markers to be laid for next season perhaps. In any case, it remains something of a triumph of organisation and perseverance that we have got this far in the season; this is the 15th race of 17. We will be back at the same place next week for the Sakhir Grand Prix.

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