2017 Chinese Grand Prix: The battle is on between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull impress and McLaren fail to deliver again

The second race of the 2017 Formula One season, the Chinese Grand Prix, saw Lewis Hamilton come out on top and now the Brit is level on points with Sebastian Vettel who won the Australian Grand Prix last month. Prior to the start of this race, Hamilton said that he was more determined than ever to get back to winning ways and that's exactly what the Mercedes driver did.

Vettel maintained a close gap with race leader Hamilton during the early stages of the race but Ferrari's decision to get him into the pits early while the Virtual Safety Car was out, cost the German Ferrari driver track position that he could not make up.

Also read: Formula One to ditch turbo hybrid power units and bring back noisier engines by 2021

Following that pit stop from Vettel, Hamilton had an easy drive for the rest of the race as he claimed his first win of the season. Now, after pre-season testing and the first two races of the 2017 Formula One season, it's clear that it will be Vettel and Hamilton and Ferrari and Mercedes competing for the drivers' championship and the constructor's championship.

Valtteri Bottas suffered a disappointing race after impressing in Australia as the Finn spun while weaving to warm his tyres behind the safety car, which dropped him down to 12th. He finished the race in sixth place and will have a lot to do the rest of the season if he is to live by his words and actually challenge his teammate for the title.

Here are five things we have learnt from the 2017 Chinese Grand Prix.

The title will be fought between Vettel and Hamilton

With Vettel winning the first race of the season and Hamilton the second, the two drivers are currently on 43 points with Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen in third with 25. While Hamilton and Vettel might not win all the rest of the races in the 2017 Formula One calendar between them, the Formula One universe expects the drivers' championship to be fought between these two drives.

Hamilton was always the favourite since even before the season began to win the world championship. But with Ferrari looking every bit as fast as Mercedes this season and with Vettel looking like he is back to his best, you can expect the two drives to give it their all for the title this season.

Problems for McLaren and Fernando Alonso continue

The Honda engines continued to be unreliable for McLaren in the second race of the season as both their drivers in Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne were forced to retire. Just like in the Australian Grand Prix, Alonso was comfortably sitting in the top ten and looked to collect his first points of the season but was forced to retire with another suspension issue. At this point you would expect McLaren to switch from Honda to Mercedes engines for the rest of the season or they could risk losing Alonso midway through the season.

Red Bull could cause a few upsets this season

Red Bull might not be able to match the pace of Ferrari and Mercedes this season but you can expect them to finish in the top three regularly and cause a few upsets along the way. After a strong showing by Verstappen in Australia which saw him finish fifth, the Dutch driver backed that up with a podium finish in China despite starting the race from 16th.

His teammate Daniel Ricciardo also put in a strong performance after he had a disappointing start to the 2017 Formula One season that saw him retire in his home race in Australia. Ricciardo finished the Chinese Grand Prix in fourth and you can expect things to only get better for Red Bull from here.

It's anyone's race no matter where you start from

Hamilton and Vettel were the only two drivers who finished the race in the same position they started in. This just goes to prove that if you qualify in a strong position it's not necessary that you will finish in that position or do better. The best example from this race is that of Verstappen who started in 16^th but finished third. The likes of Carlos Sainz, Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Ocon all started the race outside the top 10 but still managed to finish in the points position. This just goes to show how competitive Formula One has become among the team in the middle order.

Antonio Giovinazzi has his worst weekend ever

Giovinazzi replaced the unfit Pascal Wehrlein for the season-opener in Australia and remained in the seat in China for Sauber-Ferrari but the Italian ended up crashing his car twice in two days in the almost the same place of the track. Giovinazzi crashed his car in qualifying after he skidded on the green paint after running wide.

Then during the race he lost control of his Sauber on a damp patch of the track and crashing into the pit wall in the opening laps of the race. The Sauber officials will now be hoping for Wehrlein to get back to fitness as soon as possible so that Giovinazzi does not crash their car again.

Check out Antonio Giovinazzi's crashes from qualifying and the race.