Lap 45, as the track conditions continuously improved, the race committee decided to enable DRS.
However, for Leclerc, this DRS was rather redundant, as Qin Miao had already pulled away by more than 2 seconds. Both were on medium tires, and with no rain, Qin Miao's lap times were 0.5 seconds faster than Leclerc's.
Simply put, his car was faster.
Just as Leclerc was pondering a strategy shift to secure his third-place position, a new incident occurred on the track.
Immediately after the incident, the race committee deployed the safety car.
The driver involved in the accident was Russell, who was in tenth place.
The crash happened just before T2 on the track.
Here, Russell, with the advantage of having DRS, launched an attack on Stroll, who was in ninth. Naturally, Stroll wasn't about to easily give up his position, so he chose to defend the inside line. Russell, with DRS, did not want to let go of this overtaking opportunity, opting to overtake from the right.
