Although Verstappen won from pole and initially looked to have Leclerc easily covered, Mercedes’ race pace brought it into play with a one-stop strategy versus Red Bull’s planned two services.
That gave Lewis Hamilton a sniff of an unlikely win, before he initially lost that then regained in during dramatic virtual and the full safety car periods close to the end of the race.
When the lights went out under thick cloud cover that had built up ahead of the start, Verstappen quickly moved to chop off Leclerc’s look to the inside of Turn 1.
In any case the Ferrari driver was never close enough to make a move, while behind Sainz and Hamilton touched lightly as the Mercedes gained ground considerably around the inside of the Tarzan hairpin.
The pack made it through the opening turns without further incident, with Hamilton the only one of the leaders to use the low line through the steeply banked Hugenholtz Turn 3.
Verstappen pressed his advantage to escape DRS range to Leclerc by the end of the second lap of 72, with Leclerc going from 1.5s behind two laps later to only a second behind his rival over the next few tours.
But just as it looked as if Leclerc might be able to gain the overtaking aid, Verstappen suddenly found a chunk of pace in the low 1m16s to re-establish his bigger advantage.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari F1-75, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W13, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB18, George Russell, Mercedes W13, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL36, Mick Schumacher, Haas VF-22, the rest of the field at the start
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
The two leaders were the only pair able to stay in that laptime bracket, with Sainz soon falling far behind Leclerc and with Hamilton swarming – the highest place driver to start on the medium tyres compared to the softs being run on the leading three cars.
As the race settled down, Verstappen continued to edge away from Leclerc – his lead rising steadily towards three seconds before ballooning to nearly five before Ferrari called Leclerc in at the end of lap 17.
Red Bull responded on the subsequent tour and despite his similar service to go from the softs to the mediums being nearly a second slower than Ferrari’s, Verstappen emerged with his lead barely tripped given his in- and out-lap speed.
The top two pitting left Hamilton to lead on his first stint mediums, with George Russell running three seconds behind his Mercedes…
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