Alonso and Albon were the last drivers, apart from Verstappen, to swap their soft tyres for hard ones on lap 16, which put the reigning world champion in sole possession of the front, where he expertly set a still-competitive time for the starting set.
Behind Verstappen, team-mate Pérez was second behind Russell, while Sainz braked late into Turn 1 and made a brilliant pass on Leclerc for third. McLaren’s Norris and Piastri were sixth and seventh, with Hamilton holding on to eighth, and Alonso and Zhou, who pitted early, completed the top ten.
After 17 laps, Verstappen decided it was time to pit – his advantage was enough to put him comfortably ahead of Pérez – while Sainz continued to climb the order, moving around the outside of Russell, who was also experiencing battery problems, into corner four to move up to third place.
Outside the points, Tsunoda held on to 11th place ahead of a recovering Stroll, Magnussen and Albon, and Ricciardo, who recovered from a lock-up at Turn 12 to find a way past Ocon. Bottas was 17th after his first lap trouble, while the struggling second Alpine car’s Gasly was 18th, Hulkenberg 19th and Sargent a lap down.
The only trouble at the front for Red Bull was on the radio, with Perez asking his race engineer to speak louder in an attempt to dent 2021, 2022 and 2023 champion Max Verstappen’s comfortable 10-second lead in the RB20.
