Shane Lawrie
LeClerc drops to 4th on first lap as heartbreak for Sainz as he comes together with Ricciardo at the second corner finishing his weekend early.
Sergio Perez took advantage of a poor reaction time from Charles LeClerc to move ahead of the Ferrari driver into second position as Norris also made a move on LeClerc.
Lap 7 Fernando Alonso retires with damage to the side pod after Schumacher slid into him during the Turn 1 incident between Sainz and Ricciardo.
Lap 8 LeClerc took overtook Lando Norris to the approval roar of the Tifosi.
George Russell and Kevin Magnussen put on a fine display of close racing during the 11th lap before overtaking him in the 2nd corner however he ran wide and gave the place back allowing Valteri Bottas to catch up to the two.
By the end of the 13th lap Russel finally managed to get past the HAAS driver and head off up the road to chase down Lando Norris leaving Bottas and Magnussen behind him to battle each other for 5th.
Back in 11th position Lewis Hamilton battling for 10th position with Lance Stroll as they slowly caught up to Yuki Tsunoda running in 9th over laps 14-16.
Ricciardo pitted on Lap 17 taking on the medium compound slicks becoming the guinea pig for the rest of the field and as he put in greens and purple sector times other drivers started coming in to take the slicks too.
Bottas had a terrible stop as Esteban Ocon and Lewis Hamilton appeared to come together in the pit lane with Ocon getting ahead of Hamilton as Ricciardo set the fastest lap time of 1:29.169.
Replay footage of the Ocon and Hamilton incident showed a very late release by the Alpine team.
The lap times tumbled with Charles LeClerc gaining the fastest time on lap 22 with a 1:24.435 and the stewards confirming a 5 second penalty for Ocon’s release.
Ricciardo’s early pit paid off with him gaining places to 15th with Hamilton ahead of him in 14th as is next target.
Perez had a moment thinking he was mowing lawns on Lap 28 but managed to keep ahead of LeClerc who closed to within a second which would have put him into DRS zone but race control still had not enabled DRS.
And not too much longer after that, DRS enabled. Albon, Gasley and Hamilton get into a DRS train. It would appear that Hamilton with DRS is taking less risks trying to overtake Gasly.
LeClerc pits on the 50th lap putting the red soft tyre on coming out just behind Lando Norris into 4th appearing to try and get the bonus point for fastest lap time with Perez coming in shortly after by Red Bull who took advantage of the gap created after LeClerc pitted.
Verstappen followed the next lap as LeClerc made short work of Lando getting ahead of him by the end of the next lap.
LeClerc in the hunt for Sergio Perez spun the car causing damage to the front ring with the Tifosi letting up a mighty roar. The put him back on track in 8th behind Sebastian Vettel.
By the final lap LeClerc managed to climb back into 6th after getting past Vettel and Tsunoda.
Meanwhile at the front, Verstappen after some heartbreak this year managed to keep the Red Bull out front with team mate Perez 16 seconds behind and Norris a further 18 seconds back.
In one of the biggest surprises of the day, George Russell and Valteri Bottas finished 4th and 5th respectively.
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