Lap 34/54: Our new leader is George Russell.Don’t get too excited.He hasn’t pitted, while Verstappen has just zipped in and out of the pit lane.Now Russell will pit.Lap 33/56: Norris pits.

The stop takes nearly four seconds.He comes out nearly four seconds behind Leclerc.Things are shaping up horribly for McLaren here.Lap 32/56: Hamilton pits.He re-emerges in sixth, once again ahead of Piastri.

Antonelli pits.He did a masterful job of recovering from his early spin.Leclerc has posted the fastest lap.Lap 31/56: Piastri pits.He’ll be on soft tires, which will surely be better than the mediums that were letting him down – but for how long?Russell goes about a mile outside track limits, so maybe his tires are starting to fail.

Lap 30/56: Leclerc gets past Tsunoda into sixth,Tsunoda duly pits,Piastri tells McLaren he thinks it’d be difficult to go the rest of the way on soft tires,He’s still out there ahead of Russell, but the gap is dropping,The team asks him about undercutting.

The nerves in Piastri’s voice are noticeable.Lap 29/56: Tim Brosnan has a contender for biggest collapse – Greg Norman at the Masters.Good choice.I should be able to come up with a soccer equivalent at some point, but it’s escaping my brain so far.Lap 28/56: We’re at the halfway point, and Russell is slowly gaining on Piastri.

Can McLaren hold out a little longer before changing tires?The only driver in the top 10 who has pitted is Leclerc, who is ninth.Oops – eighth.Make it seventh, as he passes Bearman.Verstappen’s team tells him to make his tires last a bit longer.Must be nice to have a 10-second cushion.

Lap 27/56: Standings at the moment …1.Verstappen 2.Norris (more than 11 seconds back) 3.Hamilton (more than five seconds back of Norris) 4.Piastri 5.

Russell (still nearly two seconds back) 6.Tsunoda 7.Bearman 8.Leclerc (just passed Hulkenberg) 9.Hulkenberg 10.

Alonso 11.Lawson 12.Stroll 13.Gasly 14.Antonelli 15.

Colapinto 16.Albon 17.Hajduk 18.Bortoleto 19.Ocon (Sainz is out)Lap 25/56: Leclerc doesn’t seem to be pushing too hard on his new tires, perhaps hinting that he’ll stick with a one-stop strategy and nurse those tires until the end of the race.

Lap 24/56: Leclerc comes out of the pits in ninth.Norris has nothing but clean air ahead of him because Verstappen is more than 10 seconds in front, but how long with the tires hold?Hamilton is third but isn’t gaining ground.Lap 22/56: McLaren’s pit crew gets on the radio to let Norris know about the track-limits warning.“I know, I know, I know,” says Norris.Now someone else is trying to pass Leclerc, and it’s his teammate, Lewis Hamilton! Leclerc defends with near-reckless zeal, and Ferrari has seen enough, telling him to pit so he can get rid of those soft tires.

And as I type that, Norris whips past Leclerc on a straightaway and leaves Leclerc nothing going into the turn.Lap 21/56: Norris pulls within a car length of Leclerc, but he’s clearly chastened by his track-limits warnings – now one away from a five-second penalty – and doesn’t make a serious effort to pass.Lap 20/56: Again, Leclerc defends well, and Norris gets another track-limits warning.Seems like Leclerc should get one as well.Verstappen’s lead is now nine seconds.

Pretty soon, he’ll be able to stop and sign autographs.Lap 19/56: Russell may think Piastri is slow at the moment, but he’s dropping farther behind the championship leader.Here goes Norris again …Lap 18/56: Norris stays close to Leclerc.Verstappen pulls farther away.Can Antonelli charge back from his spin to get into the points? He races past Hadjar into 16th.

Lap 17/56: Norris now has two warnings for exceeding track limits, and Hamilton is getting a little closer to the McLaren driver.Russell has Piastri in his sights.Nervous moments for the constructors’ champions here.Lap 16/56: Norris and Leclerc have an epic battle through several turns, but Leclerc hangs on for now.If Norris can get past, he’s gone.

He’s clearly faster,Meanwhile, Verstappen is more than six seconds in front,Lap 14/56: Russell to his team: “Piastri seems slow,” The response is that he’s having trouble with his front left,Yeah, we know.

Russell’s still well more than a second back.Leclerc tattles on Norris exceeding track limits.How would he have that great of a view in his rearview mirror?Norris is within a half-second now.Lap 13/56: Norris is slowly reeling in Leclerc.Most of the rest of the field is spread out, especially in the top 10.

Verstappen is more than four seconds in front of Leclerc.Lap 12/56: Antonelli rebounds from being spun out by posting the fastest lap time so far.Might be a question of having no traffic around him – he’s 18th, well behind Hadjar and well ahead of the unfortunate Albon.Reminder of the question of the day: If Verstappen rallies to win the championship (or, from another point of view, McLaren collapses), it’ll be the biggest rally (or collapse) since …?Lap 11/56: Piastri tells his team the front left doesn’t look great.He’s comfortably in fifth at the moment.

New wrinkle: McLaren teammate Norris says the same thing.Radio tells Norris to go to Plan B.We’ll see what that is.Lap 10/56: Stewards will take a closer look at the Sainz-Antonelli incident after the race.Sainz is more likely the guilty party, and he’s out, so it’s not particularly relevant.

Chatter is that the hard tires are not doing well, which means it’ll be difficult to pit early and still make it a one-stop race.Lap 9/56: The only driver to pit under the Virtual Safety Car is Albon, who was left behind at the start after bumping tires with Bortoleto and spinning 180 degrees.Tsunoda worked his way up six places to seventh.Can he hang on? Move up?Lap 8/56: Antonelli on race radio …“He took me out.”“Saw that mate.

”“What a ****ing idiot.”Sainz on race radio says Antonelli turned into him.Stewards will certainly look at it, but Sainz is out anyway.Lap 7/56: Kimi Antonelli has spun out! He remains stationary for a few moments as the entire field passes him.He gets going again.

Sainz has apparently hit Antonelli, and now Sainz is stopped.Virtual safety car is applied.Lap 6/56: Current standingsVerstappen Leclerc Norris Hamilton Piastri Russell Antonelli Sainz Tsunoda Bearman Hulkenberg Alonso Lawson Gasly Bortoleto Colapinto Stroll Ocon Hadjuk AlbonLap 5/56: Verstappen is more than three seconds ahead already, benefiting from the three-way battle for second behind him but also benefiting from posting the fastest lap.Brad Pitt’s character in the F1 film was right – Verstappen’s pretty good.Lap 4/56: Norris is sandwiched between the two Ferraris, but Hamilton is bidding to change that up by having a go at Norris.

Lap 3/56: Norris has a run at Leclerc.Maybe a bit impatient? Leclerc has the soft tires and may be able to stay ahead for that reason.Lap 2/56: DRS, which helps drivers overtake, is only in effect is a driver is within a second of the preceding car.Verstappen already has more than 1.5 seconds on everyone.

Albon apparently bumped into Bortoleto in that start and got the worst of it.Lap 1/56: Yellow flag waves briefly but is put away.Albon had a horrific start and is well back.Verstappen is just pulling away already.Russell has dropped two spots behind Hamilton and Piastri.

Tsunoda is up three and is three ahead of arch-rival Lawson.Verstappen zips out quickly but slows down a bit, Norris gets caught behind him, and Leclerc (who won here last year) charges past him in to second.Formation lap is underway.Get your popcorn …Tire choices: Medium tires all around except for Leclerc (3rd on the grid, soft) and the last five on the grid – Bortoleto soft, Ocon hard, Albon hard, Stroll soft, Hadjar hard.Interesting strategic choice by Ferrari to put their two drivers on different tires