Russell’s attempts to pass the Ferraris were complicated as Hamilton and Leclerc got stuck into each other as they fought for intra-team supremacy.<\/p>\n
Hamilton led the way for the first part of the race and he led a train featuring Leclerc and Russell for eight laps after the restart following the safety car.<\/p>\n
But on lap 23, Leclerc made a late move on Hamilton into Turn 14 at the end of the back straight, setting off a gripping battle for the next 15 laps.<\/p>\n
After Leclerc claimed second, the Ferraris went side by side through the first-corner complex, Leclerc just holding on, before Hamilton reclaimed second into the hairpin the following lap.<\/p>\n
Leclerc passed him again at the start of the following lap, before Hamilton attacked into Turn Six and then passed his team-mate again into Turn Nine, only for Leclerc to re-pass again.<\/p>\n
This time, their battle allowed Russell to close up, and he passed Hamilton on the straight on lap 27 and then Leclerc in the same place two laps later.<\/p>\n
But once Russell was gone, Leclerc and Hamilton returned to their private fight.<\/p>\n
Leclerc seemed to have it won as he led Hamilton for a few laps, only for the seven-time champion to reclaim third place on lap 35.<\/p>\n
Leclerc still wasn’t finished and he passed Hamilton into Turn 14 four laps later, only for Hamilton to get back past again into Turn One on the following lap.<\/p>\n
That prompted Leclerc to come on to the radio and say: “That’s actually quite a fun battle.” And this time Hamilton had it won, as he eased away from his team-mate.<\/p>\n
“It was one of the most enjoyable races I’ve had for a very long time,” Hamilton said afterwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell’s attempts to pass the Ferraris were complicated as Hamilton and Leclerc got stuck into each other as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-347351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}