Verstappen holds off Sainz after late safety car, Hamilton third

The race had already been twice interrupted by virtual safety car activations, which put Verstappen and Sainz on different two-stop versus a likely one-stop strategy for the Ferrari ahead of the closing stages, before the safety car closed them up and set up a straight fight for the victory on the same hard tyres, albeit with the Spaniard on younger rubber.

Behind, Fernando Alonso’s front row start became a seventh-place finish for Alpine behind Mercedes drivers Hamilton and George Russell, while Charles Leclerc’s recovery drive from the back of the grid finished with fifth place.

At the start, Alonso’s intention to attack Verstappen at the first corner never came close to fruition as the Red Bull driver aced the launch and easily led into Turn 1.

Sainz followed Alonso through the opening corners while behind Hamilton’s left-front brushed Kevin Magnussen’s right-side front wing endplate when the Haas attacked to the Mercedes’ outside of Turn 3, which broke the part and left it hanging off.

As Verstappen consolidated his lead, which was 1.0s at the end of lap 1 of 70, Sainz took until the end of lap three to pass Alonso – using DRS to get by on the approach to the final corners.

Verstappen eked out a few tenths per lap over Sainz during the initial laps, where the Ferrari driver struggled with graining tyres, but the Spaniard was starting to reverse this trend when the first stint was interrupted by the first VCS activation on lap nine.

Just after Magnussen had been ordered to pit to replace his front wing by the FIA, Sergio Perez pulled out of the mid-pack with what he suspected was an engine problem that meant he stopped in the runoff behind Turn 9 and the run down the hairpin late in the lap.

While one of its cars was being cleared away under the VSC, Red Bull immediately pulled Verstappen in to switch for hards to take advantage of the reduced time stop with racing neutralised, as Sainz and Alonso stayed out while Hamilton followed Verstappen in.

Sainz led for the next phase of the race after green flag racing resumed at the end of lap 10, with Verstappen then eating into what was a maximum 6.4s advantage for the Ferrari over the former leader, who quickly caught and passed Alonso for second – getting by with an easy DRS move down the back straight

The status quo held until lap 20, when the VSC was activated again after Mick…