After an early crash between Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg brought out the safety car on lap 7, all drivers, save for the two McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Norris, made the switch to fresh rubber taking advantage of the free pit stop.

However, when the papaya drivers did complete their first pit stop sequence on lap 24 for Piastri and lap 25 for Norris, they had a pace advantage given their new sets of tyres, which helped mitigate the time and track position they had lost against Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and Antonelli, the top three at that point in time.

When Norris set out to chase Antonelli it was clear that the young Italian did not want to put up too much of a fight given the tyre delta the Bristol-born driver had on him, practically leaving the door open on the inside into Turn 1, a gap Norris used to take P4.

Then, as the race came to an end, the two drivers found each other on track once more, with Norris holding a significant tyre adavantage again. Only this time, Antonelli pushed on, trying to take advantage of the drop in pace Sainz was enduring in his Williams ahead.

On lap 56, though, Antonelli made a mistake coming out of Turn 9, which was the opportunity Norris needed to take back P4.

The Austrian team’s chief advisor Dr. Helmut Marko said it had been “obvious” that the Italian rookie had let Norris through. Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, when informing the Dutch driver over the radio of the Briton’s pass on Antonelli, said that the Italian had just “pulled over and let Lando through.”

Mercedes team principal and CEO Toto Wolff blasted Marko’s comments as “nonsense,” and dubbed the 82-year-old as “brainless,” in response to a question from GPblog.

Wolff then revealed he had spoken to Lambiase and explained that Antonelli had made a mistake, which had been the reason behind Norris’ overtake late in the race, which prompted an apology from the Red Bull Head of Racing.

“Yeah, I said to GP that there's quite a social media storm [due to your comments], that's what Bradley [Lord, Chief of Communications Officer and Team Representative] told me,” Wolff told GPblog. “And GP said, ‘sorry if I caused that, I didn't see the incident,’” Wolff concluded.

Antonelli, since the unfounded accusations has received online abuse, including death threats, which have prompted him to block his profile picture. Red Bull Racing also issued a statement recanting the accusations, which Mercedes acknowledged. The FIA also took a stance condemning the abuse the Mercedes rookie was subjected to.

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