Leclerc made further strides after snatching fifth place from Hülkenberg, while Verstappen also made progress after overtaking Alonso to secure eighth place. A few early pit stops took place on laps 13 and 14, with Magnussen making a slow stop after a strong start to see him drop down the leaderboard, before teammate Hülkenberg enjoyed a much quicker visit to the pits.

Alpine, meanwhile, opted to exclude Gasly from P3 after he came under pressure from a chasing Russell, putting Alpine back in P9 ahead of his new teammate Doohan on his F1 racing debut. Meanwhile, the stewards confirmed that Zhou had been handed a five-second time penalty for a false start, in further disappointing news for Kick Sauber.

Norris reported that his tires felt fine on lap 17 and the leader continued to increase his lead over Sainz. Elsewhere, Gasly got ahead of his former teammate Tsunoda and secured P8. Despite a brief resistance from the RB, he managed to maintain this position.

While all eyes were on when the leaders would pit, Leclerc was the first to do so on lap 21, returning the Ferrari to eighth place after his struggling start to the race. The question then was whether Russell would move up in third to cover for Leclerc, but the Mercedes fell by the wayside.

“I can keep this pace,” Russell reported to his engineer, before Leclerc continued his determined effort and moved up to seventh ahead of Lawson – Gasly was next in his sights. On lap 24, Norris continued to lead ahead of Sainz, Russell, Verstappen and Hamilton, who all still had to pit.