Key events
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Lap 45/58: Fifth-placed Hamilton shaves a bit of time off that gap. He’s 12.2sec down.
Lap 44/58: Hamilton is now up to fifth! He is 13.9sec down on his teammate, Russell, who is fourth.
“What’s the gap?” Hamilton asks his team on the radio.
“You can do that,” they insist of trying to close the gap.
Lap 43/58: At the front, Norris is driving like a dream and stretches his lead to 4.9sec.
Lap 42/58: This is Jack Doohan’s debut grand prix in the Alpine. The Australian is 14th as it stands, and may be wondering if it’s all a dream.
Zak Brown of McLaren has a chat: “We’re happy with how it’s going, Lando is happy with his tyres … Lando is looking good.”
Lap 40/58: The gap between Russell in fourth and Gasly in fifth is 11.9sec.
That’s the main reason that a podium isn’t looking on the cards for Hamilton before he heads for Ferrari.
Lap 39/58: Magnussen sets the fastest lap.
Lap 38/58: Hamilton is seventh. Brundle observes that a podium is looking extremely unlikely. But that fifth place is more manageable.
Lap 37/58: Norris now leads by 3.3sec. This is a strong drive by the Englishman and his team will be praying he can bring it home.
Lap 37/58: As it stands, McLaren win the constructor’s by 13 points.
Lap 36/58: Hamilton has now pitted and is down to seventh. He has Alonso and Verstappen behind him. Hamilton has medium tyres.
Lap 35/58: Nice replay of Leclerc’s start. He catapulted off the line and made up several places down the straight and into turn one. He is now running third!
So it’s McLaren, Ferrari, Ferrari in the top three as it stands.
Lap 34/58: Norris leads by 2.3sec.
Lap 33/58: Might we see a safety car? I think Hamilton said there is a lot of debris on the track.
Lap 32/58: Bottas is out of the race after a crash with Magnussen.
Meanwhile, on his team radio, Verstappen calls the powers-that-be “stupid idiots” for giving him a 10-second penalty.
Lap 31/58: Mercedes, speaking to Hamilton on the radio, say they have a plan to secure him a third-place finish.
Lap 30/58: Lawson gets a 10-second penalty for leaving the pit with a screw loose.
(His front left tyre was not screwed in.)
Lap 29/58: Hamilton is up to fourth. He hasn’t pitted yet. Verstappen goes in now and serves his 10-second penalty while he is there. He rejoins in 11th place.
Lap 28/58: Colapinto (Williams) retires.
“Sorry Carlos, that’s now how it was meant to be,” comes a voice on team radio. “It’s been a pleasure this year.”
Lap 28/58: Up front, Norris has 2sec on Sainz who is pushing hard from second place.
Lap 27/58: Norris pits, and it’s a textbook two-second stop that means he can re-emerge with the race lead.
Lap 26/58: That was lucky for Lawson. He left the pit stop with his left front wheel unattached, although perhaps miraculously, it stayed on.
Lap 26/58: Sainz into the pits for Ferrari and goes on to hard tyres.
Norris will pit soon, then.
Lap 25/58: It seems like Lawson may have an issue after a pitstop, with the front left wheel not attached correctly.
“The car dropped,” he says on the radio … anyway he’s back in the pits and a penalty will follow.
Lap 24/58: The second-placed Sainz eats into Norris’s lead a little, and it’s down to 3.8sec.
Lap 23/58: Leclerc is now eighth after his pit stop.
Lap 23/58: Norris’s lead is holding at 4sec.
Sainz, Russell, Verstappen, Hamilton now make up the top five after Leclerc pitted.
Lap 21/58: “Watching F1 from Swiss SRF footage is quite refreshing and neutral,” emails Dirk. “Verstappen was beyond halfway Piastri in that first corner, shouldn’t Piastri have made the smarter choice and give room under the F1 rules?
“That was the SRF commentary at the start as well.”
The stewards disagree … and the video evidence I saw is that he wasn’t beyond halfway.
Lap 20/58: “At the start it was two McLarens against one Ferrari. Now it’s the other way round. That will put a lot of pressure on them, and they have to get everything right from here,” observes Brundle of the constructor’s championship finale.
Lap 19/58: Piastri is now up to 13th after that penalty and his earlier spin. He is trying to get past Fernando Alonso.
Lap 19/58: Hamilton is sixth, having made up 12 places since the start. Verstappen fifth, Leclerc fourth.
Lap 17/58: Norris’s lead touches four seconds for the first time.
A few moments ago, world champion Verstappen was complaining about the tyres getting too hot in his Red Bull. “I can’t brake,” he said.
Lap 17/58: Hamilton and Gasly are the only drivers running hard tyres in the top 10. Everyone else on mediums.
Lap 16/58: The top 10: Norris, Sainz, Russell, Leclerc, Verstappen, Hamilton, Lawson, Tsunoda, Gasly, Doohan.
Norris leads by 3.8sec.
Lap 15/58: Lawson up to seventh in the RB!
Lap 14/58: Verstappen moves up to sixth now, overtaking Hamilton, who nevertheless has done an incredible job to get up there having started 18th.
Could Hamilton secure a podium or even better to sign off with Mercedes?
Lap 13/58: Norris leads by 3.5sec.
Sainz, Gasly, Russell and Leclerc make up the top five.
The official timings are available here, once you get yourself a login.
11/58: Brundle is right about Verstappen. It was a foolish, selfish move that caused both he and Piastri to spin in turn one. But then again it’s made a potential processional one-two for McLaren more exciting …
Lap 10/58: Lando Norris leads the race by 3.3sec for McLaren. With Piastri so far back, it’s all about Norris getting the win. And if he does win, it will secure the constructor’s title, no matter what Ferrari do.
Ten-second penalty for Piastri!
The Australian is having a day of it. After the first-corner spin, he is penalised for a coming together with Franco Colapinto. Piastri is now running 17th.
“So unfair of Max,” the co-commentator Brundle says of the first-corner shunt. “Red Bull are not in the [constructor’s] championship. To put in such a risky move. Would Piastri know he was going to lunge like that? It wasn’t necessary.”
Lap 8/58: Piastri is now under investigation for a coming together with Colapinto in the Williams.
Lap 6/58: Leclerc of Ferrari is up to seventh! He started 19th.
