[4][5] Heading into the weekend it was Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes who held a lead of 41 and 148 points in the drivers and constructors championships respectively.

However, Bottas locked his front right tyre forcing Hamilton to take a wider line through the corner and allowing Verstappen to pull away between turns one and two.

The overtaking move forced Bottas slightly wide and onto the kerbs which slowed him enough for Leclerc to challenge on the run up to turn four.

As Leclerc passed Bottas, he drifted to the left hitting the same part of the wing that Hamilton had touched moments before, damaging it.

Just ahead of him Daniel Ricciardo had captured fourteenth place and Sergio Pérez was running in eleventh from his starting position of sixteenth.

Whilst this slowed both drivers' progress, the presence of the lapped cars also gave Verstappen DRS allowing him to stay ahead of Hamilton.

At the end of lap 38, Verstappen was held up by Ricciardo and then made a small mistake on the exit of turn twelve allowing Hamilton to close to 0.3 seconds.

Further down the field, Carlos Sainz came in fifth and Lando Norris managed ninth earning twelve points for McLaren.

Kimi Räikkönen came in seventh for Alfa Romeo and Albon secured the last point scoring position of tenth for Toro Rosso.

[14][15][16][17] Bottas managed to recover to eighth place and Gasly finished sixth but both were scrutinised in the media due to their poor races in comparison to their teammates.