Dutch Grand Prix LIVE: Max Verstappen wins home race to leapfrog Lewis Hamilton in championship

Further back from the fight at the front, Sergio Perez is up to seventh ahead of both Alpines after making his stint on medium tyres work really well so far.

Lando Norris, meanwhile, is in seventh and is the only man on track who has yet to venture into the pits. Both Ferraris are head of him, with Leclerc still leading Sainz.

George Russell is currently running thirteenth in this race but has just been given a five second time penalty by the stewards for speeding in the pitlane.

That’s an enormous blow for a driver who has thoroughly impressed with solid defensive driving so far this afternoon.

Mercedes response to Bottas’ rather weak defence of the lead is to pit him and and put him onto medium tyres.

It is hard to imagine those tyres lasting until the end of the race, so he should pit again at some stage, but it might be worth a roll of the dice.

Max Verstappen has caught Valtteri Bottas after the Finn went wide through the final chicane and the Dutchman makes the move stick using DRS off the final corner.

Hamilton has followed straight through and the gap between the leaders is now 3s.

Pierre Gasly came out behind Fernando Alonso following his pitstop and has just re-overtaken the Spaniard by lining up a move around the outside of turn one and using all of the tarmac to carry enough speed to make it work.

Gasly is having yet another excellent weekend in that Alpha Tauri.

Max Verstappen is now reeling in Valtteri Bottas extremely quickly on fresh rubber, with the Finn struggling for pace on soft tyres which have now done 28 laps.

Verstappen is an average of 1.2s per lap faster than the Mercedes and will be all over Bottas’ gearbox in a matter of moments.

Fernando Alonso has rather emphatically proven Esteban Ocon’s complaints about the Spaniard’s pace wrong since the start of the race.

After two laps the Frenchman asked his Alpine to allow him through, labelling Alonso “extremely slow”, but the two-time world champion has now pulled out a gap of six seconds.

He might have taken that personally...

Alpha Tauri have brought their first car in for a stop as Pierre Gasly drops back from fourth place to seventh in order to switch to the medium tyres.

Ferrari, who have both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz behind the Frenchman, will have to respond soon.

Hamilton and Verstappen’s relatively early stops mean they won’t be able to go to the end on these medium tyres, so a second stop in the final third of the race is inevitable.

Valtteri Bottas, on the other hand, is still out there on his softs and could attempt a one-stop by moving to hard tyres. That would mean Verstappen, currently second and roughly 9s behind the Finn, would have to make the overtake in order to win the race.

This is that strategy advantage Christian Horner was talking about pre-race.

Lewis Hamilton has pitted to change onto medium tyres after 20 laps, with a slightly slow change on the front right meaning an uncharacteristically slow stop from Mercedes.

Max Verstappen responds by making the same change on the next lap, and comes out 2.5s ahead of his title rival.

Bottas now leads the race.