Behind Leclerc, Sainz nursed older tyres to make it a Ferrari four-five ahead of Russell, while behind them Alonso provided some late entertainment.

Unusually, Aston Martin chose soft tyres for the veteran Spaniard when they stopped under the safety car, which meant another pit stop on lap 44, with 12 to go.

The stop dropped Alonso to 11th place, but he used his fresh medium tyres to carve through the field, passing Esteban Ocon’s Alpine, Hulkenberg, Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, whose car was also damaged in the Stroll/Ricciardo incident, to take seventh.

In the course of it, he rescued a wild moment at the final corner while chasing Hamilton, dipping his right rear wheel onto the gravel in exactly the same way as Sainz had when crashing in qualifying on Saturday, but saving the huge slide with remarkable skills and reactions.

Piastri’s car had been damaged in a concertina effect at the hairpin at the first restart, when Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin cannoned into Daniel Ricciardo’s RB, which then rammed Piastri.

On the first restart lap, Haas driver Kevin Magnussen collided with Ricciardo’s team-mate Yuki Tsunoda and the two incidents led to the safety car being deployed again.

Magnussen and Stroll were both penalised 10 seconds for the incidents.

It was a low-key day for Hamilton, who spent the first part complaining about lacking pace, but with the help of the safety cars managed to haul himself up into the points in ninth, even if sixth and ninth amounted to another chastening day for Mercedes.