Chinese F1 Grand Prix 2019 Results: Winner, Standings, Highlights, Reaction

Lewis Hamilton won the 2019 Chinese Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday at the Shanghai International Circuit.

He took the lead off Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas—who started on pole and finished second—heading into the first turn and held on to win F1's 1,000th race, putting him in the lead in the drivers' championship.

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top three despite losing his place to team-mate Charles Leclerc at the start.

Here's the final classification:

Per the Guardian's Jonathan Howcroft, Hamilton told Martin Brundle after the race:

"We didn't know where we would stand with the Ferrari's but after that start the rest is history. The strategy has been on point these first three races. You can see how close it is between us all and we really don’t know how it’s going to turn out."

A dramatic opening lap not only saw plenty of change at the head of the race but also the deployment of the safety car after Daniil Kvyat hit McLaren's Lando Norris and his team-mate Carlos Sainz at Turn 6:

Kvyat was hit with a drive-through penalty for his troubles, though F1 journalists Chris Medland and Nate Saunders felt it was a harsh sanction:

He retired in Lap 43, while Norris cut short his race four laps from the finish.

Sergio Perez enjoyed the best start, climbing four places from 12th on the grid to P8 in his Racing Point, which he would hold on to for the finish. Alexander Albon also impressed, starting in the pit lane after his crash in FP3 and finishing in the points in 10th.

With Leclerc struggling for speed, he was given orders to allow Vettel to pass him in Lap 11 so that the German might put pressure on Bottas and Hamilton, who had opened up a six-second gap at the front of the race.

Following on from Renault's problems in Bahrain last time out, Nico Hulkenberg was forced to retire less than halfway through with an unspecified problem:

An undercut from Red Bull's Max Verstappen allowed him to split the two Ferraris, and he managed to get wheel-to-wheel with Vettel as the German fought to hold him off. 

That was as close as he would come to securing third, though, and it was relatively comfortable for Vettel after he and Verstappen pitted for a second time.