2017 Chinese Grand Prix lap times and fastest laps

2017 Chinese Grand Prix

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Mercedes and Ferrari were closely matched on performance in the Chinese Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel traded quick laps late in the race as Vettel tried to bring the Mercedes within range. he couldn’t, but he was quicker than Hamilton on eight of the last ten laps.

2017 Chinese Grand Prix in pictures
Hamilton, however, answered Vettel with a 1’36.657 two laps from home which stood as the race’s fastest lap. There was less than five-hundredths of a second in it between him and Vettel, suggesting there was almost nothing to choose between the pair today.

Vettel spent an earlier part of the race stuck behind his team mate Kimi Raikkonen. Once he got ahead and moved past Daniel Ricciardo into clean air, Vettel was vastly quicker than his team mate, by more than a second per lap at times.

Did Ferrari miss an opportunity to help Vettel win the race by not getting Raikkonen to wave him through? Raikkonen was complaining about poor engine performance and understeer at the time.

Vettel finished the race just over six seconds behind Hamilton, but it clearly could have been closer. It couldn’t be any closer between them in the championship, as they are level on points heading to Bahrain. But if this is the shape of things to come Ferrari may not be content to allow one of their drivers to hold the other one up for many more races.

2017 Chinese Grand Prix lap times

All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:

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2017 Chinese Grand Prix fastest laps

Each driver’s fastest lap:

Rank Driver Car Fastest lap Gap On lap
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1’35.378 44
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1’35.423 0.045 40
3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1’35.849 0.471 41
4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1’36.003 0.625 42
5 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1’36.511 1.133 50
6 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1’36.531 1.153 55
7 Max Verstappen Red Bull-TAG Heuer 1’36.722 1.344 31
8 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-TAG Heuer 1’36.791 1.413 36
9 Esteban Ocon Force India-Mercedes 1’37.036 1.658 55
10 Carlos Sainz Jnr Toro Rosso-Renault 1’37.398 2.020 30
11 Kevin Magnussen Haas-Ferrari 1’37.528 2.150 35
12 Romain Grosjean Haas-Ferrari 1’37.551 2.173 50
13 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1’38.015 2.637 36
14 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1’38.181 2.803 47
15 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1’39.496 4.118 31
16 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1’39.732 4.354 50
17 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1’40.090 4.712 18
18 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren-Honda 1’41.460 6.082 15
19 Antonio Giovinazzi Sauber-Ferrari 2’02.409 27.031 1

2017 Chinese Grand Prix

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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8 comments on “2017 Chinese Grand Prix lap times and fastest laps”

  1. Andre Furtado
    9th April 2017, 15:21

    Looks like Hamilton and Vettel are on a plane on their own this year.

    1. Profile Photo

      Ashwin (@redbullf1)
      10th April 2017, 20:37

      True that and I for one am glad that it worked out that way,

      Bottas and Kimi seem to be out of the league of their team mates.

  2. Profile Photo

    David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
    9th April 2017, 20:04

    Grand Chelem?

    1. Profile Photo

      Kribana (@krichelle)
      9th April 2017, 21:57

      Led entire race from pole and scored fastest lap.

      1. Profile Photo

        The Last Pope (@the-last-pope)
        9th April 2017, 22:28

        But doesn’t DOTW. Ridiculous.

        1. JR
          10th April 2017, 4:37

          Impressive as it is, it does not make a very good show. Verstappens race was much more spectacular, which is what matters most for dotw…

        2. Profile Photo

          MattDS (@mattds)
          10th April 2017, 8:06

          @the-last-pope why is that ridiculous? A driver in a car that is not the best can never hope for or dream of a grand chelem, but that doesn’t mean his performance will automatically be inferior.

          It is the price that comes with being in a front-running car: when the performance seems obvious or “on par” with what’s expected, drivers do not tend to get DotW. We saw that when Vettel was dominating races in his Red Bull period as well.

  3. Profile Photo

    Ru Chern (@)
    10th April 2017, 16:59

    Lewis and Sebastian are matching each other this year. The lap time delta is way too close.

Comments are closed.