The incident likely to give rise to an investigation at Ferrari occurred on the first lap.
Hamilton started on pole, with Leclerc third behind Russell, but as the Mercedes fell back, Leclerc challenged Hamilton in turns one, two and three.
Hamilton held off him, but at the chicane at turns four and five, Leclerc dove off the outside before hitting the grass, cutting the corner and taking the lead.
Hamilton was also out on defense, although nowhere near as much as Leclerc, and this gave Verstappen the chance to overtake Hamilton in turn six and take second place.
Verstappen and Hamilton both came on the radio to say Leclerc should give up the position, but he remained in the lead and was given a five-second penalty.
The standard punishment is 10 seconds, but the stewards took into account as mitigation the fact that Hamilton had also started and neither car was able to clear the corner.
Hamilton’s argument will be that Leclerc cost him and the team a victory – if they had worked together on the opening lap they could have completed the one-two finish and would probably have raced that way to the end given the difficulty of overtaking.
Later in the race, Leclerc’s stall after the red flag left him dealing with a puncture on his tire, and he came under heavy pressure from McLaren’s Lando Norris.
But despite his concerns about the manufacturing of his tire, he managed to hold his own against the 2025 world champion.
Russell took a low-key sixth, including a 10-second penalty for flipping Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar in a spin on the opening lap, ahead of Piastri, his car damaged in the incident with Lindblad.
Gn sports
