Clear skies, dry. Temperatures: air 24°; track 42°.
Start. Charles and Carlos keep their first and fourth places.
Lap 3. DRS is enabled and on the next lap Max Verstappen passes Charles.
Lap 6. Sergio Perez copies his team-mate and passes Leclerc. Ferrari are third and fourth.
Lap 10. Nyck de Vries stops on track and Max Verstappen pits for a tyre change. No sooner is he back on track than the Safety Car comes out. Charles and Carlos make the most of it to pit for Hard tyres, losing half the usual time. At this point, Perez leads from Leclerc, Verstappen and Sainz.
Lap 13. The race resumes and Verstappen passes Charles while Fernando Alonso gets ahead of Sainz. The Ferraris are third and fifth.
Lap 25. At half-distance the positions have not changed although Alonso is closing on Charles. Sainz is still fifth with Lewis Hamilton in his slipstream.
Finish. Nothing much changes on track for the second half, even if the gaps between Charles and Alonso and Carlos and Hamilton are pretty small. It’s the first podium of the season for Leclerc and the 799th in total for the team. A good morale booster given how much work there is still to be done.