Perez followed him past a couple of laps later and began to close in on Verstappen, reducing the lead from a second, to 0.8secs, to 0.6secs on consecutive laps as the world champion began to struggle with tyre wear. The Dutchman passed Leclerc within three corners of the restart but Perez was able to hold him at just over a second behind, preventing Verstappen benefiting from the lap-time advantage of the DRS. Once in the lead, he managed the race beautifully to keep Verstappen at bay and finally break his challenge. Behind them, Hamilton had, like Verstappen, lost out because of the safety car. He dropped out of the top 10 because he stopped a lap before Verstappen.

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