On the track, the McLarens got away quickly but Russell stayed between them. Tsunoda let Verstappen past before the first lap was even completed, as his team mate made it past Alonso. Further back, LeClerc fell back to 13th.
Verstappen was speaking a lot about how much his car was not only bouncing but jumping. Brundle fleetingly mentioned that the teams were very worried about tyres getting punctured, why wasn't this brought up before? By lap ten, the issue of track limits came into play, with Tsunoda getting the first black and white flag to let him know that he only had one chance left to stay on the black stuff. Other drivers would soon see one too. Tsunoda didn't manage it and got a five second penalty which was no good in a DRS train of a race. In the end he only lost one place to Antonelli, who in got 5 seconds, so it made no difference to anyone In the race though, with more laps to run, this could be real problem for some drivers if they are not careful.
The four pit lane starters could do nothing with the changes they made. Stroll and the Alpines made a pit stop for soft tyres to have a little practice for Qualifying. Overall, it was nineteen laps of not much happening, apart for LeClerc who was driving an off-road race.
There were several factors to note for the longer race: Qualifying places would be important, tyres would need to be managed, pit stops need to be sharp, gravel will need to avoided and track limits will need to be adhered to.
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