[5] Heading into the race, Lewis Hamilton had a 31-point advantage over teammate Valtteri Bottas in the Drivers' Championship.

The only major incidents were Romain Grosjean crashing his car on the pit exit and Kimi Räikkönen's Alfa Romeo stopping on the Wellington straight, the latter of which brought out a red flag.

Three laps later, Antonio Giovinazzi, who was running in 9th place, suffered a mechanical failure and spun into the gravel at turn 16.

This incident brought out the safety car, allowing Hamilton an advantageous pit stop, maintaining the lead from Bottas.

This forced Pérez to pit and caused him to eventually finish the race last of the running cars in 17th place.

However, in an attempt to retake the position, Vettel locked up his brakes and collided with the back of the Red Bull at the entry to turn 16.

Vettel fell down the order over the remainder of the lap due to damage to his front wing, before pitting to have it replaced.

[10][11] On lap 12, for Pierre Gasly's pit stop, the Red Bull Racing team broke the record for the fastest pit stop time, with 1.91 seconds, beating the previous time of 1.92 seconds, which was jointly held by Red Bull and Williams and had stood since 2013.