The victory puts Verstappen level with Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel on F1’s single-season win record, with 13 apiece in one campaign for the multiple world champions.
Charles Leclerc recovered from his engine-change grid drop to finish third for Ferrari, salvaging a podium for the Scuderia after polesitter Carlos Sainz was eliminated in a Turn 1 tangle with George Russell that left Verstappen as a dominant leader for much of the contest even through two safety car periods before the picture all changed late-on.
At the start, Verstappen made a much better getaway versus Sainz from the front row, with the Red Bull ahead as they braked at the top of the hill for the left-hand Turn 1.
There, Sainz’s race was ended as Russell, locking up as he steamed into the apex alongside teammate Hamilton, speared into the side of the Ferrari and spun it to the rear of the pack in an incident that the stewards’ deemed was worthy only of a five-second penalty for Russell.
That left Verstappen clear up front, chased by Hamilton as Sainz came into the pits at the end of the opening lap fearing he had a puncture but in fact retired there as Ferrari had spotted the contact had caused a water leak.
Hamilton was initially able to match Verstappen lapping in the 1m42s, but soon the lead was stretching away at the front, noting the challenge of keeping things pointing forwards in the gusts regularly blasting the Circuit of the Americas under sporadically cloudy skies.
Verstappen closed out the opening 10 laps of 56 three seconds clear of Hamilton, before making a big gain towards the end of the first stint, which meant he was nearly five seconds clear by the time the Mercedes stopped for the first time on lap 12.
Red Bull called Verstappen in next time by, with both leaders going from the medium tyres they had started on to take the hards.
Verstappen’s gap was so big he rejoined only behind Perez, who had picked up damage in a lap one clash with Valtteri Bottas but did not have to pit for a new front wing as his right-side endplate later flew off as he made his way by the Aston Martin cars that had trailed Hamilton early-on.
That meant Hamilton followed the yet-to-stop Leclerc, Lance Stroll and Vettel and his gap to Verstappen grew to 6.3s over the first few laps on the hard tyres.
Just as Red Bull and Mercedes were asking their charges for feedback on the white-walled rubber, the safety car changed the complexion of the race after Bottas lost…
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