That was a brilliant piece of strategy, worthy of a chess champion. Get Lewis in-and-out without dropping a place. Then quickly close the gap so Max couldn't pit without losing track position. It was a most unusual situation created by the large gap back to third (which in turn was created by the poor performances of Bottas, Gasly and the Ferraris). I can't imagine that it featured anywhere on plans A to Z so congratulations to Mercedes on spotting it, checking there was no hidden downside and executing it all within the tight time window they had.
Can anyone else see a drift towards some dodgy late moves under braking? K-Mag on Riciardo was pretty clear-cut, yet he got away with it. I thought Leclerc hitting Bottas' front wind looked pretty iffy too, though we only got the one look at it from one camera. Perhaps the stewards have been stung by all the criticism on a certain well-know F1 forum (
) and are afraid to jump in with penalties.
While everyone is getting excited about Verstappen and Leclerc, the other new-boys performed well, within the inevitable constraints of the cars they are given to drive.
Lando Norris out-qualified Carlos Sainz although he lost out a bit in the first lap scrabble and then got thumped by a problematic tyre stop.
Alex Albon lost out in the exciting wheel-to-wheel duel we saw on TV but finished five places in front of Kvyat.
George Russell produced an excellent qually lap in the Williams and went on the finish 16th, in front of Stroll, Giovinazzi and his team-mate.