The defending champion has increased his lead in the standings from nine to 34 points ahead of Leclerc – who started his sixth pole position of the season – after winning his fourth five-race victory over team-mate Sergio Perez by 20.8s.
Verstappen’s 25th Formula One triumph came after overtaking early leader Perez by a temporary lead, with Leclerc failing to sync due to a VSC dropout before his engine exploded in shock.
As Sainz was also eliminated as part of the extreme depletion rate of Ferrari-powered cars, the road was paved for Verstappen to win when George Russell finished the podium.
Most of the grille is assembled with brand new mid-range C4 tires, bar Sebastian Vettel and Kevin Magnussen (used tires) plus Daniel Ricciardo, Valteri Botas and the back row of Lance Stroll and Mick Schumacher, all wearing solid tires. C3.
Perez was encouraged on the radio to get his elbows into turn 1 and delivered properly.
Initially, Leclerc’s escape was stable enough, but turning the wheels in the second phase allowed Perez to draw Verstappen after the best start to the game.
The Ferrari driver then significantly clasped his front left left hand in the opening 90-degree left-hander to run much wider than the top and ensure that Perez led the race.
Verstappen was able to examine the interior of Leclerc, but thought better of it as Sainz tried to enter the game before dropping out of the top three cars.
Perez finished the first lap with 1.3 seconds on hand in front of Leclerc to escape immediately from the DRS zone and extended this by half a second over the next two laps to consolidate first place.
With Leclerc sliding, Verstappen managed to stay 0.7 seconds behind his title contender.
Leclerc suffered a move from turn 16, the last turn defined, to allow Verstappen to close even more with the DRS before the yellow flag, after which the virtual safety car interrupted the game.
Ferrari’s attack was reduced to a car when Carlos Sainz fled on the road to escape turn 4 with a possible failure of the power unit, while 5s behind Verstappen and 5s in front of Russell.
Ferrari rolled the dice to win a theoretically cheaper pit stop, calling Leclerc for a set of hard tires in lap 10, but despite the obvious mistake, the Scuderia took 5.4 seconds to serve Leclerc.
Red Bull did not cover the strategy, giving Perez a 2s lead over Verstappen, while Leclerc renewed 11s behind the pair – but from the 13th lap he began to determine the fastest laps in the race.
Verstappen managed to eat the advantage of Perez before the Mexican, who missed 2s in one lap, was told “no fight” to allow his teammate with the help of DRS to lead in the 15th lap in turn 1.
At the end of the next tour, Perez competed for softs, but like front-line rival Leclerc, he was hampered by a massive slow stop of 5.7s, led by a problem with the front right wheel.
Red Bull called Verstappen for his hard jump just two laps later, and he also endured a service below the 3.5s face value to return to the top with a 13s deficit from Leclerc – controlling rear tire overheating – while Perez pulled out the fastest tour of Ferrari while running 4s behind Verstappen.
But too hot tires were Leclerc’s least problems soon after, as at the end of lap 20 his engine exploded in the final and he rushed into the pit lane to end the Ferrari crash.
Following the failure of the MGU-H turbo in Spain, he marked the second withdrawal of Leclerc-based engines in three races to add to the lost Ferrari 1-2 – from strategic mistakes – in Monaco.
That put Verstappen in the lead with 5.2s ahead of Perez, with fifth-placed Russell moving to the podium ahead of Ricciardo, Pierre Gasley and Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen will negotiate the target lap times with his engineer as they try to find a balance between keeping the car but not allowing the tires to cool too much.
Then the virtual safety car made its second appearance to report 16th starter Kevin Magnussen, who climbed to 11th to fight Ocon for points.
But then Ferrari’s engine in the rear of the Haas also exploded to agree with Ferrari customer Alfa Romeo, who had to stop Zhou Guanyu eight laps earlier.
Magnussen parked on the approach to turn 15 and waved the marshals to help rebuild the Haas VF-22, which began rolling down the hill to the top.
Red Bull reacted by raising Verstappen for the second time to take a set of hard tires to the flag, finally stopping 2.7 seconds before Perez stopped hard for the same 34th lap.
But a delay from the back to the left meant more time was wasted in the pit lane thanks to a 4.4s stop to give Verstappen a 10s lead when the four-minute VSC interlude ended.
Although it was Perez who would leave with the fastest lap of the evening, Verstappen’s pace in the second half of the race widened the gap north of the 20s with the flag.
Russell took part in the solitary race, but took advantage of Ferrari’s nightmare to seal the podium despite a troubled weekend for the sea and towed Mercedes W13.
Despite back pain, Lewis Hamilton climbed to fourth place thanks to energetic driving with remarkable overtaking by the trio of Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasley.
Gasley managed to cope with his hard tires for long distances, sealing fifth, while racing Sebastian Vettel recovered strongly from an early mistake to climb to sixth place.
Although he started with a set of mediums used, Vettel fought Hamilton for the seventh time before fighting for the tough to chase Okon.
Aston Martin overtook Alpine for ninth place in the 13th lap before concluding on Turn 3 to break the turn and turn on the road to escape, missing Tsunoda when continuing in the 12th.
Fernando Alonso was another strong climber, sealing seventh for Alpine, as Ricciardo managed to keep eighth ahead of Lando Norris by only three tenths, with the McLaren pair having to prove their position on the track in the start and last phase of the race while working on separation strategies.
Ocon’s long initial standstill return came to an end as Valteri Botas finished 11th in the highest finish for a Ferrari-powered car.
Alex Albon climbed to 12th ahead of Tsunoda, who had to look for some tape on his back wing after his DRS flap split in half. Schumacher crossed the line on the 14th.
Latifi’s afternoon was ruined before it really started, as the Williams driver received a 10-second penalty for stopping and driving when a team mechanic turned his car back, touching the car illegally.
He was then given an additional 5s penalty for not following the blue flags.
Stroll joined Magnussen, Zhou, and both Ferraris as retirees.
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