In the first sprint race of the season, which followed a new qualifying format (see below), Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc led from pole ahead of Perez, as Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and George Russell (Mercedes) clashed over third. After a safety-car interruption, Verstappen retook third from Russell.
Perez used DRS to pass Leclerc on lap eight of 17 and pulled clear to take victory, while Leclerc clung to second ahead of Verstappen, whose car’s floor and sidepod were damaged during his clash with Russell.
Leclerc held his pole position advantage on the run to Turn 1, ahead of Perez. Verstappen and Russell banged wheels through the opening corners, with Russell getting into third at Turn 3 as Verstappen clipped the wall on exit.
Further around the opening lap, Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri hit the wall at Turn 14, causing a safety car to clear the debris, and his right-rear tyre, off the track.
At the restart on lap six, Leclerc led Perez, as Verstappen passed Russell for third at Turn 1. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) overtook Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) to run fifth and sixth.
Perez blasted by Leclerc with ease using DRS at the start of lap eight, and sprinted away to win by over four seconds.
Leclerc tried to remain in the Mexican’s DRS range to help keep Verstappen, who had suffered floor and sidepod damage in his opening-lap contact with Russell, at bay.
Despite losing DRS from lap 11, Leclerc held off Verstappen in the closing stages to finish second.
Russell finished a distant fourth, ahead of Alonso and Hamilton. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) passed Alex Albon’s Williams to claim eighth, with Oscar Piastri finishing 10th.
This was the first weekend run to the latest sprint race weekend format, featuring the first-ever sprint shootout qualifying sessions.
With cars running the medium tyres in the 12-minute session, it was essentially a long run to set the quickest time. Leclerc did just that with 1m42.820s, almost half a second clear of Verstappen when the red flag halted the session for Logan Sargeant shunting his Williams late on.
Falling at the first hurdle were the Alfa Romeos of Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas, Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), Pierre Gasly (Alpine, who suffered an exhaust leak) and Nyck de Vries (AlphaTauri).
With the field again running medium tyres, Verstappen topped the times with a 1m42.417s, 0.083s ahead of Leclerc.
Knocked out at this point were Piastri, Nico Hulkenberg (Haas), Esteban Ocon (Alpine), Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and the absent Sargeant – who was withdrawn from the event due to damage to his car.
Just eight minutes settled the top 10 spots, with all cars now on soft tyres, and Leclerc set pole with 1m41.697s before shunting at Turn 5 on his last lap. Perez was second, 0.147s down, with Verstappen third, 0.290s off the pace.
Russell qualified an impressive fourth for Mercedes, ahead of Sainz’s Ferrari. Hamilton was sixth, ahead of Albon and the Aston Martins of Alonso and Stroll.
Norris didn’t run as he had no soft tyres available, having used them in proper qualifying on Friday.