Verstappen maintained his advantage as the encounter got under way and never looked back over the 57 laps that followed, ultimately crossing the line 22 seconds clear of Perez, who made up for his low-key qualifying effort to complete a Red Bull one-two.

Carlos Sainz rounded out the podium places for Ferrari after a thrilling exchange with team mate Charles Leclerc, who struggled with tyre degradation and suffered multiple lock-ups en route to fourth, having cleared the lead Mercedes of George Russell late on.

Russell and team mate Lewis Hamilton encountered issues with their batteries across the race, with the seven-time world champion – who also reported a broken seat – having to settle for seventh position behind McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Oscar Piastri made it two McLarens in the top 10 with a run to eighth, while Aston Martin also scored a double points finish thanks to Fernando Alonso crossing the line ninth and Lance Stroll taking 10th, despite being punted to the back of the field in a Turn 1 incident.

Zhou Guanyu just missed out on points in 11th with his alternate tyre strategy, which involved a longer final stint, followed by Kevin Magnussen in the first of the Haas cars and the two RB machines of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda.

RB sparked some late drama by asking Tsunoda to move aside for Ricciardo, given his alternate soft-tyre run to the finish, prompting the Japanese racer to shout “are you kidding me over the radio?”, only to eventually adhere to the instruction.