An early crash for Lance Stroll meant Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton were a factor in the lead fight after a brief safety car period where they stayed out and did not pit, but they eventually finished in the pack behind Ferrari debutant Oliver Bearman.
At the start, Verstappen and Leclerc launched in unison from the front row, with the polesitting Red Bull driver soon swinging across his rival on the run to Turn 1, where Perez – having got a better getaway from third – attacked Leclerc.
The Ferrari was behind the second Red Bull going into the opening complex but Leclerc fought hard to stay alongside and retook second at Turn 4.
He briefly looked as if he had the pace to keep with Verstappen even without DRS once it was activated on lap two of 50 but, although Perez dropped back from Leclerc on that tour, he stayed close enough that the next time by the pit straight he blasted by with DRS into Turn 1.
But, before the race could settle down, Stroll crashed his Aston Martin on lap seven after hitting the inside wall at Turn 22 and going straight on into the barriers outside Turn 23, which meant the safety car was called into action.
All the frontrunners pitted to exchange their starting mediums for hards, with Red Bull able to doublestack its cars and maintain track position over Leclerc, who in any case had the longest stop as Oscar Piastri and Fernando Alonso briefly came by.
Due to having two cars running close together in the pack, McLaren and Mercedes had to leave Norris and Hamilton out at this stage, which meant the former cycled through to lead Verstappen in the safety car queue, with Hamilton behind and followed by Perez and Leclerc.
The race restarted on lap 10, with Norris scampering clear of Verstappen as the hard tyres took a while to warm up on the Red Bull.
He held out until the start of lap 13, with Verstappen boosted so much with DRS he was almost ahead as the pair flashed by the finish line at the back of the grid, with the Dutchman’s move back to first place a formality at Turn 1.
Behind, Perez passed Hamilton at that spot, with Leclerc taking two more tours to do likewise with a battling move on Turn 1’s outside.
As Verstappen shot clear, Perez finally breezed past Norris with DRS down the main straight at the start of lap 18, by which point he was over five seconds behind his team-mate and saddled with a 5s penalty for an unsafe release in front of Alonso during the safety car stops phase.
As the…
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