During first 10 laps of the race, Russell and Charles Leclerc exchanged first place multiple times. On lap 12, Isack Hadjar stopped his Red Bull car on the grass and had to retire from the race due to technical issues which caused a Virtual Safety Car immediately. Mercedes reacted quickly and called both Russell, who was running second, and Antonelli on fourth place to the boxes. They changed from the medium tire to the hard tire and saved themselves 10 seconds compared to pitting at full racing speed. Ferrari chose to keep leading Leclerc and Hamilton on track.

However, lap 12 of 58 was a very early stop in one-stop strategy even for a set of fresh hard tires. But with the new regulations, no one really knew if this strategy was doable. But for the two-stop strategy, pitting in lap 12 under VSC was perfectly acceptable moment for a first stop. But which strategy was better and was it even possible to do one-stop strategy were questions that could have been answered only afterwards.

Ferrari boss, Fred Vasseur confirmed afterwards that they believed they needed to do two stops at this point of the race: “At this stage of the race, nobody was expecting to do one-stop. We targeted the optimum for us, and the optimum was to extend.” he admitted. Leclerc also added after the race: "We knew that there were very high chances that this was not going to be the only VSC of the race, and so we thought that it was better for us to maybe wait for another one. That’s always a gamble, of course.” In fact, there was another VSC in lap 18 as Valtteri Bottas had to retire his Cadillac, but he did so close to the pit entry. The yellow flags had been out for 19 seconds before the VSC was actioned. If Ferrari would have predicted the VSC, they could have pitted Leclerc. But this opportunity was no longer an option as the pit entry was closed because Bottas’ car was too close. So Ferrari’s gamble to wait for another VSC didn’t pay off.

The Ferraris pitted only once in the race in lap 25 under full racing speed, which lead to giving Mercedes 10 seconds of free race time. So they had a track position and they were able to take care of their tires as they didn’t have to race with anybody. In lap 29 Russell had radioed, “I think a one-stop is viable.” Antonelli was a little less confident when asked about it two laps later: “I think that’s going to be brave.” Later in race, Mercedes’s pit wall was confident that their strategy with just one stop was doable.

Overall, Ferrari lost they possibility of victory by not pitting in lap 12 under a VSC. Leclerc would have retained his leading position if he had done that. The Mercedes was faster, but not enough to establish a track position and pull away. And Leclerc’s better split of deployment over the lap would keep the slightly slower Ferrari ahead. Possibly, the massive gap between Russell and Leclerc in qualifying might have spooked Ferrari into believing that Mercedes had more in hand on race day. And with that on mind, they also planned their strategy.