Vettel charge ends in bizarre cool-down lap shunt with Stroll

On the cool-down lap, Vettel moved to the right of Stroll at the Turn 5 left-hander, where the two cars touched.

Vettel’s car was launched into the air, wrecking its left-rear wheel and forcing him to a halt and raising the spectre of gearbox damage.

He was given a ride back to the pits by Pascal Wehrlein’s Sauber.

“Is that possible?” asked Vettel over the radio. “Stroll is not looking where he is going. He completely shunted into my car. I mean, seriously!”

Stroll countered: “Vettel just ran into the side of me.”

Stewards will now investigate the clash.

Charging drive from last

From the back of the grid, Vettel charged his way through the field. He ran long on the soft tyre, before undercutting Valtteri Bottas' Mercedes for fourth place by switching to the supersoft for the second half of the race.

He broke the outright lap record in his pursuit of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, but was hampered by a stubborn Fernando Alonso – who held him up with eight laps to go while being lapped.

Vettel radioed: “Hey what a… Come on, Alonso. Really? I thought you were better than that.”

After attempting one move on Ricciardo with six laps remaining, Vettel lost pace and was forced to settle for fourth – 16 places ahead of where he started.

Disaster for Raikkonen

Vettel’s teammate Kimi Raikkonen didn’t even start the race, being forced to give up his front-row starting spot on the dummy grid.

His car was pushed to the garage with an apparent turbo problem, where it couldn’t be repaired in time.

“Obviously we had some issue, I dunno what it is exactly, I don’t think any of us know right now,” said Raikkonen. “It’s far from perfect, but it’s one of those things that happens sometimes.

“Impossible to say but I’m pretty certain I would have had a very good car today, but we didn’t go far enough – where we would end up we’ll never know.”