Late-race chaos after the Safety Car
As touched on above, the race was turned on its head when a Safety Car was deployed during the latter stages owing to Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli pulling off track with a mechanical issue.
This sparked a flurry of action in the pit lane, with most of the pack taking the opportunity to pit including the leading trio of Piastri, Norris and Verstappen. The latter, however, voiced his frustration after being fitted with the hard tyres – in comparison to most of those around him on the softs.
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The Safety Car prepared to peel into the pits on Lap 60, meaning that a six-lap dash would ensue to the finish. Piastri executed the restart well, meaning that both he and Norris broke away from their competitors.
Plenty of drama was playing out behind, however. Charles Leclerc overtook Verstappen on the main straight and the pair made contact along the way, an incident that was investigated after the race before it was decided that no further action would be taken.
George Russell then tried to make a move on Verstappen, resulting in another brief moment of contact that forced Verstappen to take to the escape road. Red Bull asked Verstappen to allow Russell back through, a request that the Dutchman was unhappy about – and when Russell attempted to overtake, the pair collided again.
Verstappen was subsequently handed a 10-second time penalty for the incident – dropping him from fifth to 10th – and it sparked quite a reaction from Russell, who later commented: “My perspective is that I just got crashed into!”
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