Antonelli measured his pace carefully in the opening stint, looking after his tyres, until being told to speed up as his pit stop loomed.

Over the course of lap 17, he demonstrated how much pace he had in hand when he extended his lead over Verstappen from 2.3 seconds to 3.5, before pitting on the following lap.

Two laps later, though, a virtual safety car period for some debris on track gave Leclerc a cheap pit stop – it costs nearly half as much race time to stop under a safety car than under green-flag conditions – and Leclerc was able to stop for fresh tyres and rejoin still in front of Antonelli.

Norris by this point was in the lead, but Leclerc soon passed the McLaren on lap 26, and it was now a question as to how long it would take Antonelli to close the three-second gap to the Ferrari.

Antonelli was on his tail eight laps later and passed the Ferrari up the Kemmel straight on lap 34.

Leclerc was able to stay with Antonelli, whose lead never went over two seconds, and there was extra pressure from the fact the Mercedes driver was on the cusp of a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits too many times.

But Antonelli calmly kept things under control to cross the line just under two seconds ahead and retake control of the championship.

It was his first win since Monaco in early June, after a retirement in Spain, a third in Austria and a finish out of the points at the British Grand Prix.

Ferrari showed better race pace than expected and Leclerc’s second place was an impressive performance on the back of his win at Silverstone, which was helped by a component failure on Antonelli’s Mercedes.

Leclerc rode his luck by escaping a penalty for squeezing Oscar Piastri as the McLaren attacked him during the first stint, but an accomplished drive confirmed his revival after a sticky period over the early summer races.

Hamilton, though, was in the wars. The incident with Russell secured him a five-second penalty to be added at his pit stop, and when he did come in for fresh tyres, he was released before all the mechanics had moved out of the way.

Hamilton hit the mechanic on the front right tyre as he accelerated away, immediately radioing to check he was OK, which was confirmed by the team.

That incident will be investigated after the race, so another potential penalty hangs over Hamilton.

Hamilton, further exasperated when Ferrari failed to add the front wing he had wanted at the pit stop, recovered well from his delay to catch and pass McLaren’s Oscar Piastri for fourth, behind Verstappen, who consolidated third despite complaining his second set of tyres had no grip.

More to follow