Unlike the smooth progress of his teammate, Hamilton lost his clean air after three laps following his pit stop, finding Mick ahead of him, and the gap between them was only 1.2 seconds.
Hamilton now needs to figure out how to overtake Bic in front of him.
On lap 26, Qin Miao caught up to within 2 seconds behind Gasly, who hadn't pitted yet, and the top three drivers ahead of Qin Miao still showed no signs of pitting. Thus, Qin Miao's express train in this race ends here.
Qin Miao now has to rely on his car's superior performance to attack while dealing with the dirty air.
Meanwhile, Hamilton made successive overtakes over these laps, first passing Mick, then overtaking Latifi, and now he finds himself behind Yuki Tsunoda.
Hamilton and Qin Miao are now separated only by Yuki Tsunoda.
However, the time gap between them is still quite large.
A full 8 seconds.
At this moment, the two leading drivers start considering whether to make a pit stop.
