Verstappen wins at Spa in crushing eighth in a row

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS: Formula One leader Max Verstappen raced from sixth on the grid to a crushing eighth win in a row on Sunday with Sergio Perez a distant second to seal the Belgian Grand Prix one-two for rampant Red Bull. Red Bull’s 13th consecutive victory made the team the first in the sport’s 73-year history to win the opening 12 races of a season, one more than McLaren managed in 1988 with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. Verstappen extended his championship lead over Perez to 125 points — the equivalent of five race wins — after taking the chequered flag 22.3 seconds ahead of the Mexican who started on the front row.

The Belgian-born Dutchman is heading for a third title with plenty of races to spare, the only real doubt being where he might seal it, and ripping up the record books as he goes. The next race is his home Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August where he can equal Red Bull’s now-retired quadruple champion Sebastian Vettel’s 2013 record of nine successive wins in a season. Charles Leclerc, who started on pole for Ferrari, completed the podium with Lewis Hamilton fourth and securing fastest lap for Mercedes. The one-two was Red Bull’s fifth of the season and so comfortable for Verstappen that his feisty radio chats with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase provided much more of a talking point. They also showed his supreme confidence, even if some of it was not entirely serious.

Aggressive start: Perez made an aggressive start from second on the grid, tucking in behind Leclerc through the tight, opening La Source corner and then blasting past on the Kemmel straight to seize the lead. Verstappen was already up to fourth and chasing Hamilton. He passed the seven-time world champion on lap six at Les Combes and pulled off a similar move on Leclerc three laps later at the same place to start the chase of Perez and a private Red Bull battle.

By lap 16, after both had pitted with Verstappen’s stop half a second faster, the Dutch driver was right on Perez’s tail and perfectly placed to blow past the Mexican on the Kemmel straight and pull away. Perez never got another chance after that. Fernando Alonso was fifth for Aston Martin, ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell, McLaren’s Lando Norris and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon. Lance Stroll was ninth for Aston Martin and Yuki Tsunoda took the final point for AlphaTauri. Red Bull now lead Mercedes in the constructors’ standings by a mighty 256 points. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was the race’s first casualty, the Australian rookie stopping by the side of the track after Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz squeezed him against the wall at La Source on the opening lap. Sainz’s sidepod was holed in the contact and the Spaniard dropped down the field before pitting to retire at the end of lap 23, with the car wheeled into the garage.