Leclerc remained his nearest challenger but the Ferrari driver allowed Sergio Perez past on the last lap for tactical reasons to do with Ferrari’s attempt at wresting second place in the constructors’ championship from Mercedes. Perez had been awarded a 5sec penalty for banging wheels with Norris as he made his way up from ninth on the grid. George Russell was running fourth on the road but an official third would clinch the position for Mercedes. So Leclerc allowed Perez by to give him the chance of pulling more than 5sec on Russell – but less than 5sec on Leclerc himself. Which was a tricky thing to orchestrate. He didn’t hold up Russell, who finished 4sec behind Perez on the road, thereby clinching Mercedes the position by 1sec.
The McLarens didn’t have the race pace of Leclerc or Russell, simply because they opened up their front-right tyres more quickly. Oscar Piastri went backwards from his P3 grid position, passed in the early laps by team-mate Norris and subsequently by Russell. Norris then lost third to Russell due to a 2sec delay at his pitstop. This trio were all passed by Perez, originally intending to one-stop from his ninth place grid position but bailing out of it as his front tyres began to suffer. But making his second stop so much later gave him a big tyre advantage over the McLarens and Russell, which he used very effectively. His contact with Norris at the Turn 7-8 chicane sent the McLaren driver onto the run-off from where he emerged ahead. Perez repassed him without contact at the same place on the next lap.
AlphaTauri needed eight more points than Williams if it was to beat it to seventh in the championship. The Williams wasn’t competitive here but the AlphaTauri was, Yuki Tsunoda qualifying it sixth. He was running in that position late in the race on a one-stop strategy and had he finished there, that would have sealed the position. But on his old rubber he was unable to keep Piastri and Fernando Alonso behind him in the last few laps.
