Leaving the pits, Ocon drove straight into LeClerc, having been told by his engineers to stop, breaking his own front wing and was duly awarded a ten second penalty, a significant chunk of a shorter sprint race.
Williams elected to start Albon from the pit lane.
Verstappen was punchy at the start, diving across at LeClerc. His team mate Perez completely missed the corner behind him and lost a number of places to cars behind him, with Ricciardo ending up third.
In the first corner, Norris was out and the Safety Car came out. The two Aston Martins came together, Stroll crossing in front of Alonso, with Hamilton going for what he felt was a gap, coming in to the Aston Martins. The pair went into Norris. Stroll then came into the pits to retire and Ocon, cheekily took his 10 second penalty early. Unfairly, the stewards decided no further action was needed as it was a first corner incident.
On Lap 5, when DRS was enabled Perez was past Ricciardo, if he couldn't overtake the weaker sister team, questions would be asked. The Australian was then vulnerable to Sainz but still had DRS from Perez, less than a second ahead.
Then there was more bad news for Norris, who was to be investigated for crossing the track to get back to the pits.
Everyone enjoyed watching Hamilton struggling to pass the Haas for one point. His team mate, Russell, meanwhile was in 14th. The battle raged on with Magnussen cutting a chicane, getting a ridiculous ten second penalty. As this was announced, the stewards also announced that Hamilton was being investigated for speeding in the pit lane.
Further up the race, Sainz could not get past Ricciardo for 4th.
Hamilton and Magnussen kept going at each other, with Tsunoda sneaking up behind them. As Hamilton went for it again, Magnussen put up a strong defence and both cars went off the track. With potentially both cars carrying a time penalty, Yuki stood to get points at the end. But he wasn't content with this and, in one swift move, he was past both cars. In the aftermath, Hamilton finally got past Magnussen (the Dane getting another 10 second penalty, giving places to lots of drivers, but no points, as the pack was so close).
There were plenty of opportunities on the last lap for overtakes to take place. Hamilton overtook Tsunoda, so the drivers finished thus: Verstappen, LeClerc (both running a boring race), Perez, Ricciardo (a much needed and hard fought for 4th), Sainz (challenging to the very end), Piastri, Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Tsunoda, Magnussen, Gasly (6 places ahead of his team mate), Sargeant (3 places ahead of his team mate in a very rare placing), Zhou, Russell (the Mercedes having both an abysmal qualifying and race car for this event), Albon, Bottas, Ocon and Alonso (we guess carrying some damage from his first corner collision). After the 25 second time penalties were applied, Magnussen was moved to the back of the table but points were not affected. Hamilton was then given a 20 second penalty for speeding in the pits, which put him out of the points and Tsunoda in, meaning the Torro Rossos had both cars in the points. Ricciardo commented: "I prefer it up the front." and the team were delighted with the result.
LeClerc commented that he played it somewhat safe at the start so as not to get any damage that might hurt Qualifying later. This is a good point and makes you wonder why his team mate Sainz went for a last minute, unsuccessful dive up alongside Ricciardo in the last couple of corners. Some people (Fitzpatrick for one) feel you can take chances because there are fewer points places to chase and it's just the Sprint but that isn't true. If you get damage, you damage your Qualifying session in a couple of hours thus damaging your race.
Magnussen said that all his penalties were deserved and that he played the game well, creating a gap to protect his team mate Hulkenberg from Hamilton. It was not the way he liked to go racing but fully took credit for those points for his team.
Mercedes admitted that they couldn't get the tyres working; had they got enough information to make them work in the race?
Adrian Newey enjoyed periodical coverage as the cameras checked in on him. I don't know whether the director thought he might switch cap or shirt as a sneak peek for which team he will move to.
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