Lewis Hamilton was in third for Mercedes, with his teammate George Russell in fourth, a great recovery for the latter having dropped to 18th at one point. Verstappen held his lead off the start in the short climb into turn one from Leclerc and Sainz, while Russell made a bold move on Sergio Pérez. Verstappen could not open a gap to Leclerc, who remained in DRS range but could not quite make a pass as he harried the Dutchman, within a tenth of a second of one another for repeated laps. Leclerc went hard through turns three and four on lap 10 but could not make the move stick. Verstappen defended until once more Leclerc tried again on lap 11. Verstappen came back at him until the Dutchman was pitted for fresh hard tyres a lap later. Verstappen meanwhile charged on his fresh tyres and had found real pace to take third behind Leclerc and Sainz, with 19 of the 71 laps complete. Verstappen’s pace was impressive and put him within 17 seconds of Leclerc, who was pitted on lap 26, 13 after Verstappen, to take hard tyres and he emerged behind the Dutchman, who would have to stop again. Leclerc now had the new tyres and chased down Verstappen, his pace once more superior to that of the Red Bull, and he positively breezed past with DRS on lap 33 at turn three. Verstappen duly stopped again on lap 36 and emerged 26 seconds back from the leader and behind Sainz.

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