Picture Credit: Twitter
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez stepped up as championship leader Max Verstappen lagged behind and took the pole position at the podium pipping pole-sitter Charles Leclerc who finished right behind the Mexican. However, the race winner is under investigation for a Safety Car infringement. Meanwhile, Carlos Sainz managed a P3 finish to help Ferrari earn valuable points. Max Verstappen could only manage P7 after starting from P8.
Seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton could not capitalize on his P3 start as he finished in the ninth position. His ramming into the barrier on Lap 33 turned out to be a bummer for the Briton. He also locked up in an attempt to pass Vettel in the final two minutes of the race and dropped to ninth.
That gave Verstappen P8 who lost five places to fall to P12 at the start. However, the Dutchman made three up by Lap 9 when the first Safety Car was deployed for Nicholas Latifi and Zhou Guanyu’s collision. Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel capitalised on errors from Hamilton and Verstappen to finish sixth and eighth, respectively, in a massive result for Aston Martin.
Behind Hamilton, Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10 for AlphaTauri with Valtteri Bottas (11th) unable to take the final point despite taking softs for the final Safety Car restart. Kevin Magnussen, who had to pit with damage from a Lap 1 collision in avoidance of Verstappen, ended up 12th, with Schumacher finishing up 13th. Russell rounded out the standings in 14th for Mercedes having started in the pit lane. The Briton pitted four times and posted the fastest lap of the race.
There were six retirements from the race, with Zhou and Latifi colliding early on before Alonso stopped with an engine issue on Lap 20. Albon crashed and retired in the pits on Lap 26, before Esteban Ocon's engine gave up to make it a double retirement for Alpine, and Tsunoda crashed out to bring out the final Safety Car.