The season featured a title battle between Mercedes and Ferrari for the second consecutive year. Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel — each a four-time World Champion — were the principal contenders, and the season was billed as the "Fight for Five" by journalists and fans, the first time in Formula One history that two quadruple world champions competed for a fifth title. The championship lead changed hands five times across the year. At the halfway point after the British Grand Prix, Vettel led by eight points. Hamilton clinched his fifth World Drivers' Championship title at the Mexican Grand Prix; the team secured its fifth consecutive World Constructors' Championship title at the following race. Vettel finished runner-up 88 points behind Hamilton, with Kimi Räikkönen third. In the Constructors' Championship, Mercedes finished 84 points ahead of Ferrari, with Red Bull Racing third, 152 points behind Ferrari.
McLaren terminated their engine partnership with Honda and signed a three-year deal for power units supplied by Renault, citing Honda's failure to supply a reliable and competitive power unit. Toro Rosso took over the vacated Honda arrangement, running full-works Honda power units for the first time in that partnership's history. As part of the engine swap, Red Bull Racing loaned Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz Jr. to Renault's works team. Sauber renewed their partnership with Ferrari, upgrading to current-specification power units after running year-old units in 2017, and secured a title sponsorship deal with Alfa Romeo.
Toro Rosso signed 2016 GP2 Series champion Pierre Gasly and two-time World Endurance champion Brendon Hartley as their full-time drivers, with Hartley becoming the first full-time New Zealander driver since Denny Hulme in 1974. Charles Leclerc, the reigning Formula 2 champion, made his competitive début with Sauber, replacing Pascal Wehrlein. Felipe Massa retired from Formula One at the end of the 2017 championship and was replaced at Williams by Sergey Sirotkin, who made his competitive début with the team.
Force India were placed into administration on 27 July 2018 during the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend. A consortium led by Lawrence Stroll purchased the racing assets and operations through a company named Racing Point UK Ltd. The original team, Sahara Force India, was excluded from the Constructors' Championship. A new entity, Racing Point Force India, applied for a late entry and began participating from the Belgian Grand Prix with zero points in the Constructors' Championship, though drivers Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon retained the points they had scored. The other teams agreed to allow Racing Point Force India to retain prize money accrued by Sahara Force India in the preceding years.
The French Grand Prix returned to the calendar for the first time since 2008, held at the Circuit Paul Ricard, which had last hosted the event in 1990. The German Grand Prix also returned after a one-year absence, held at the Hockenheimring. The Malaysian Grand Prix, part of the championship from 1999 to 2017, was discontinued. The Russian Grand Prix was moved from April to September to fill the vacancy.
A revised grid penalty system replaced the 2017 arrangement that had drawn widespread criticism: a driver changing a second power unit component in the same event was moved to the back of the grid rather than receiving an additional fixed-place penalty. Race stewards were granted authority to penalise improper race starts even when the automated detection system did not flag them. In the event of a red-flag suspension, races were to restart from a standing start with drivers in the positions held at the time of suspension.
Technical regulations required power unit suppliers to provide all customer teams with an identical specification, addressing an observed performance disparity in Mercedes-engined cars. Each driver was permitted three internal combustion engines, three MGU-H, and three turbochargers, plus two each of the MGU-K, energy store, and control electronics. Restrictions were placed on oil burning, limiting consumption to 0.6 litres per 100 kilometres. The use of "shark fins" and "T-wings" was banned. The tyre allocation rules were relaxed to allow Pirelli to supply compounds with up to two steps of difference rather than sequential compounds, and two new compounds were introduced: the pink-sidewalled hypersoft (softest) and the orange superhard (hardest).
The most significant technical change was the introduction of the halo, a wishbone-shaped cockpit protection frame mounted above and around the driver's head and anchored to the monocoque forward of the cockpit. The FIA had examined seventeen accident case studies and concluded the halo would have prevented injuries in fifteen of them. The minimum chassis weight was raised to 734 kg to accommodate the device. Teams were required to purchase pre-fabricated halo units from approved suppliers and were prohibited from developing their own aerodynamic variants. The halo was scheduled for adoption across all FIA-sanctioned open-wheel categories including Formula 2, Formula 3, and Formula E by 2020.
Vettel won the opening round in Australia after a well-timed virtual safety car period allowed him to pass Hamilton. He also won in Bahrain from pole. Daniel Ricciardo broke the run with a two-stop strategy victory in China. Hamilton took his first win in Azerbaijan and the championship lead. Hamilton won in Spain; Max Verstappen took his first podium of the season in second. Ricciardo won in Monaco from pole despite an engine problem mid-race that left him severely down on power. Vettel won in Canada from pole to take the championship lead by one point. Hamilton won the returning French Grand Prix and retook the lead, while Vettel was involved in a first-corner crash with Valtteri Bottas. Verstappen won in Austria after both Mercedes cars retired with technical problems. Vettel won in Great Britain after Hamilton was spun on the first lap, extending his championship lead. Vettel crashed out of his home German Grand Prix after a mistake in light rain, handing Hamilton victory from fourteenth on the grid. Hamilton won in Hungary from pole.
After the summer break, Vettel won in Belgium despite starting second, with Hamilton second and Verstappen third. A first-corner incident sent Romain Grosjean over the top of Leclerc. In Italy, Räikkönen claimed the fastest pole position in Formula One history at that point; Hamilton overtook Räikkönen on lap 45 to win, while Sergey Sirotkin scored the only point of his season in tenth after the disqualification of Grosjean, the first time in the series' history that every championship entrant scored at least one point.
Hamilton won in Singapore, which he described as one of his best laps ever. In Russia, Bottas started from pole but followed team orders on lap 26 to allow Hamilton through. Hamilton converted pole to victory in Japan, his 80th career pole position. In the United States, Räikkönen won his first race in 113 Grands Prix — a new record — with Verstappen second and Hamilton third. The championship lead was not decided that weekend. In Mexico, Verstappen won by 17.3 seconds while Ricciardo retired with an engine failure. Hamilton finished fourth, enough to secure his fifth title. In Brazil, Verstappen was spun by Esteban Ocon while attempting to unlap himself, allowing Hamilton to retake the lead and win; the incident led to a physical altercation in the driver weight checks after the race. Mercedes clinched the Constructors' Championship that weekend. In Abu Dhabi, Nico Hülkenberg barrel-rolled into the barrier on lap 1, triggering the safety car; Räikkönen retired on lap 7. Hamilton won ahead of Vettel. After the race, Hamilton and Vettel flanked the retiring Fernando Alonso on the post-race lap, performing synchronised donuts on the start-finish straight.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
Gallery · 2 related images
