Verstappen’s victory, combined with teammate Sergio Perez finishing fifth, saw the Dutchman extend his lead in the standings to 15 points.
Verstappen’s lead was quickly erased in the early going. A slight delay at the start saw the Red Bull ace overtaken by George Russell and Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap, although the Mercedes duo were distracted by Aston Martin veteran Fernando Alonso closing in from behind.
An exciting start was soon cut short by the deployment of the safety car, followed by the red flags that halted the race. Two consecutive crashes involving Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) on the opening lap and Alexsander Albon (Williams) on lap 6 sent sand flying onto the track and caused minor damage to the barrier at Turn 6. But the race was interrupted inadvertently to help Verstappen regain his form.
As soon as the safety car was deployed, Mercedes decided to call Russell in for a tyre change. However, the decision cost the Briton and he dropped to 7th. The red flag was then raised, the team was ordered to the pits to wait and change tyres. This made Mercedes’ decision ineffective and hurt Russell.
When the race was restarted on lap 10, Hamilton only held the lead for two more laps. When the drivers were allowed to use the DRS wing, Verstappen immediately took advantage. And with the advantage of the RB19’s superior speed, the Red Bull driver easily regained the lead and gradually broke away from Hamilton after a simple overtake on the straight before Turn 9.
Meanwhile, Russell gradually recovered, moving up to 4th and aiming for a top 3 result after just a few laps. However, an engine failure on lap 18 forced the young Briton to retire after a promising race. Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz took advantage, moving up to fourth and gradually challenging Hamilton and Alonso. But the Spaniard was unable to overcome the two veterans.
The rest of the race saw Verstappen take complete control of the game as the world champion enjoyed a comfortable gap with the rest of the pack. On lap 47, a loss of control sent the RB19 flying onto the grass at the penultimate corner, but the incident only reduced the gap between Verstappen and Hamilton from 11 to 7 seconds, without affecting the Red Bull driver’s chances of finishing first.
While Verstappen was comfortably in the lead, Hamilton was left behind and had to defend against his former teammate Alonso. Over the radio, Hamilton repeatedly expressed his concern that his tyres would not be able to complete the remaining race as the gap to his rival fluctuated between one and two seconds.
Race engineer Peter Bonnington was forced to encourage and remind that Alonso was in a similar situation but was trying to force Hamilton into making a mistake by burning out his tyres too quickly. And as he had done so many times in the past, Hamilton was able to hold on to his tyres until the end of the race.
The climax came a few minutes before the end of the race. Two safety cars were deployed and two red flags were raised. The first was when Kevin Magnussen’s (Haas) VF23 went wide at Turn 1 and crashed into the retaining wall on lap 53. The impact shattered the rim and left debris strewn across the track.
The race was only able to restart with two laps remaining. However, the race was stopped again shortly afterwards. Sainz’s car clipped Alonso’s rear wheel as he started, causing the Aston Martin to spin, causing chaos in the group behind. Perez had to cut across the grass. Pierre Gasly then appeared to have failed to notice team-mate Esteban Ocon, pushing the Frenchman into the retaining wall. The collision left both Alpine cars badly damaged and debris strewn across the track.
The red flag was immediately raised again and F1 rules stipulate that the starting order must be the same as on the previous full lap. This allowed Alonso to regain third place, despite having dropped back after the collision. Perez was placed fifth, despite having dropped as far back as 11th. The race was restarted and he finished behind the safety car.
Sainz was handed a five-second penalty for causing the Turn 1 collision, which dropped the Spaniard from fourth to 12th and denied him points. Sainz reacted angrily to the referees’ decision: “They should have waited until after the race and discussed it with me. The penalty is too harsh and unacceptable.”