Hamilton wins Chinese GP but under fire for spraying hostess

Lewis Hamilton led teammate Nico Rosberg to a 1-2 finish for Mercedes in Shanghai, but his victory has overshadowed by accusations of sexism when photographs of him dousing a Chinese model with champagne went viral. Social media users from China has lashed out at Hamilton, with one Weibo user calling him “trash”. 

The model in question, Liu Siying, however, has played down the incident, saying “It lasted for only one or two seconds, and I did not think too much about it at all.” 

Okay, so photograph does look bad, but maybe it was just badly timed; after all, champagne-spraying at the F1 podium takes place all the time, with the winners often spraying anyone, everyone and everything around them.

Hamilton, who was perhaps too busy celebrating his win, did not respond until Thursday. "It was kind of a fun thing, I would never intend to disrespect someone or embarrass someone like that," he said. 

"It's nice to know that the lady didn't (take offense)" Hamilton added. "If it was the other way and she had been really unhappy, then perhaps there'd be more to say."

With his latest victory, the reigning world champion claimed his second victory of the 2015 season and his fourth on the Shanghai circuit. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel is firmly back in the race, after winning the Malaysian GP and beating his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, to third place in Shanghai.

Hamilton, however, had the race in his bag the entire time, and finished with a 0.7-second lead over Rosberg.