Verstappen maintained his benefit because the encounter obtained underway and by no means appeared again over the 57 laps that adopted, in the end crossing the road 22 seconds away from Perez, who made up for his low-key qualifying effort to finish a Crimson Bull one-two.
Carlos Sainz rounded out the rostrum locations for Ferrari after an exhilarating trade with teammate Charles Leclerc, who struggled with tyre degradation and suffered a number of lock-ups en path to fourth, having cleared the lead Mercedes of George Russell late on.
Russell and teammate Lewis Hamilton encountered points with their batteries throughout the race, with the seven-time world champion – who additionally reported a damaged seat – having to accept seventh place behind McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Oscar Piastri made it two McLarens within the high 10 with a run to eighth, whereas Aston Martin additionally scored a double factors end due to Fernando Alonso crossing the road ninth and Lance Stroll taking tenth, regardless of being punted to the again of the sphere in a Flip 1 incident.
Zhou Guanyu simply missed out on factors in eleventh along with his alternate tyre technique, which concerned an extended remaining stint, adopted by Kevin Magnussen within the first of the Haas vehicles and the 2 RB machines of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda.
RB sparked some late drama by asking Tsunoda to maneuver apart for Ricciardo, given his alternate soft-tyre run to the end, prompting the Japanese racer to shout “are you kidding me over the radio?”, solely to finally adhere to the instruction.
Williams endured a tough opening race to 2024, with Alex Albon having to chill his automobile mid-race on his option to a lowly fifteenth, whereas teammate Logan Sargeant introduced up the rear after operating off the observe resulting from a reported steering wheel downside.
Sitting between them was Nico Hulkenberg within the different Haas after he tagged the aforementioned Stroll right into a spin on the first nook and needed to pit for a brand new entrance wing on the finish of the primary lap, leaving the German down in sixteenth on the conclusion of the race.
Alpine’s difficult weekend continued as Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly skilled nameless races, the pair accumulating seventeenth and 18th, respectively, with Valtteri Bottas the penultimate finisher – forward of Sargeant – after a painfully lengthy pit cease down at Kick Sauber resulting from wheel nut dramas.
Again in Parc Ferme, Verstappen hopped out of the successful RB20 to gather the fifty fifth victory of his F1 profession, the motive force and his Crimson Bull group sending a transparent message to the remainder of the sphere as he appears to make it 4 world championships on the bounce.
These rivals will now have a couple of days to dig by way of the information and take into consideration a response because the F1 paddock strikes straight from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia for the second spherical of the marketing campaign on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
