Frontrunners on the charge following grid penalties
Carlos Sainz led home the trio of drivers from frontrunning squads starting down the order and recovering to score strong results, with the Ferrari ace finishing fourth ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull racer Sergio Perez.
Sainz and Hamilton were required to start from the rear of the field – with Sainz ahead thanks to his thirdplace qualifying result – for taking all-new engines ahead of the race. Perez dropped from qualifying fourth to 13th for taking his first additional internal combustion engine over the three allowed by the rules.
But the Mexican driver got crowded out on the exit of Turn 2 to drop back towards the already surging Sainz, who then dived past Perez the next time into the first chicane, with the pair briefly touching as the Ferrari squeezed the Red Bull. Sainz then made a series of overtakes to pull off the maximum damage-limitation result in such circumstances. Sainz executed the contra-one-stopper – starting on the mediums and then moving to the softs when that compound held up better than expected and the hard proved slower.
Hamilton did likewise, but took longer to progress after getting caught up in the first-corner melee and being hit by debris from Valtteri Bottas’s Alfa Romeo. He did though make aggressive progress, including a fine double pass on Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly just after his pitstop.
Perez’s late attempt to catch Hamilton on a two-stopper was thwarted by the safety car. That strategy was necessary because of Perez’s big lock-up during Sainz’s lap-two attack, which caused severe vibrations, plus debris getting into his right-front brake duct. That then caught fire at his first stop for hards, leading to braking problems that eventually cleared.