Remarkably, Verstappen and Hamilton are level on points heading to the final race of the season, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Lap 11: Mick Schumacher’s heavy crash at Turn 22 immediately prompted the Safety Car.
The deployment of a Safety Car is usually a good opportunity for teams to pit earlier than they otherwise would have at racing speed.
The red flag effectively postpones the race.
When the start lights went out, Hamilton had the better getaway and was ahead of Verstappen as they turned left at Turn 1.
Behind the action at the front, there was further drama, as Sergio Perez lost control of his car and spun.
Had the race continued without a red flag, it’s likely Red Bull would have been told to ask Verstappen to give the position back to Hamilton.
Hamilton was squeezed by Verstappen on one side and Ocon on the other and was fortunate not to lose his front wing.
Verstappen emerged in the lead, but the stewards immediately noted the incident and told Red Bull to give the position back.
But this wasn’t a wheel-to-wheel racing collision, it occurred as Verstappen slowed to let Hamilton past as a result of the Turn 1 incident.
But while Red Bull had told Verstappen to give back the position after conversations with race control, Hamilton had not been notified of the plan.
“Then it became apparent that he was trying to let me past, which I guess he had been asked to do, but before the DRS zone.
There was some backchat from Masi that Meadows wasn’t listening to the correct channel, but Meadows said he only had the message once Verstappen had already slowed down in front of Hamilton.
But just as the Mercedes went past, Verstappen shot back up the inside to reclaim the lead, leaving pretty much everyone at the circuit gobsmacked at what they were witnessing.
Verstappen was later told by his race engineer that he didn’t need to let him past because he already had the five-second penalty against his name, but it likely wouldn’t have made much difference to his result.
Lap 47: Verstappen reported that his rear tyres were “gone” as he dropped more lap time to Hamilton.
Lap 48: Hamilton made sure of the point for fastest lap with a series of quick sectors but as he did so he lost another part of his front wing over one of the kerbs.
It would later increase to 20.8s as he was also found guilty of causing the collision with Hamilton on lap 37 when data from his car showed he had slammed on the brakes in front of the Mercedes.
Verstappen didn’t even wait until he was out of the car to throw a verbal grenade.