George Russell came out on top after an exciting opening battle with Lewis Hamilton.
Action-packed opening laps
It was a Mercedes front-row lock-out, with Ferrari drivers starting P4 and P6, separated by McLaren drivers. Despite the dominant qualifying, it remained to be seen whether the Silver Arrows would be challenged in the sprint race.
Hamilton had a brilliant start, moving up to P2 and eventually taking the lead at Turn 9 of the opening lap. For the next 5 laps, the former teammates engaged in an exciting battle for the lead. Eventually, it was Russell who took the lead going into Turn 14 hairpin and controlled the race from then on.
As the gap with Russell grew, the Ferraris battled amongst themselves for the remaining podium positions. After swapping positions for a few laps, Leclerc stayed ahead.
While Russell was battling for the lead, his teammate did not have as good a start as he had hoped. Antonelli was working his way back up the grid to regain positions after losing 5 places at the start.
However, losing positions wasn’t his only trouble. The opening lap also saw Kimi making contact with Hadjar in Turn 4. The incident was investigated, and the Mercedes driver received a 10-second penalty.
Determined not to miss out on points, he set out to build a gap to the driver in 8th place. The young Italian charged to P2 after a brief battle with the McLarens and Ferraris.
Safety Car and retirements
The first retirement of the Sprint Race came on Lap 12. Racing Bulls’, Arvid Lindblad was asked to pit to retire the car due to technical issues. This was the rookie’s second session retirement this weekend. His practice session was cut short on Friday due to a hardware issue.
A few laps later, Nico Hülkenberg was asked to pull up on the side of the track due to a technical issue with his Audi. It was this retirement that brought out the safety car.
For Cadillac, it hasn’t been a smooth weekend either. While the Safety Car came out, Valtteri Bottas made his way into the pits due to a power unit issue, bringing his Sprint race to an end. But that’s not it, Sergio Pérez also received a 5-second penalty for Safety Car infringement.
The safety car gave a chance for much-welcomed pit stops for fresh tyres ready for the closing stages of the race. For Kimi Antonelli, it also allowed him to use the pit stop to serve his 10-second penalty, finishing P5 overall.
Final 3 laps
With the Safety car ending with 3 laps to go, it was time for a restart on lap 17.
While preparing for a restart, there was almost another incident when Carlos Sainz nearly hit Esteban Ocon while trying to keep up the temperature in his tyres.
Once the race resumed, George Russell was able to keep his lead after Leclerc had a snap of oversteer on the exit of the final corner. This was exactly what the Mercedes driver needed to keep the lead till the end.
The last laps also saw an exciting battle between Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton for P3, while Kimi Antonelli was making his way up to P5, battling with Ollie Bearman and Oscar Piastri during the final stint.
Weekend is not over
Ahead of Qualifying and the main race, it was double points for Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren from the Sprint race, with Liam Lawson getting points for Racing Bulls and Ollie Bearman collecting points for Haas.
Next up, Qualifying!
Feature Image Credit: Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team