Red Bull’s Max Verstappen equalled Ayrton Senna’s career total of 41 victories with a dominant win at the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman’s sixth triumph in eight races this season gave him a 69-point lead in the championship and was the 100th victory for his Red Bull team.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso passed Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes on track to win a battle for third place.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc recovered from qualifying 11th to take fourth.
Verstappen’s winning margin of 9.5 seconds was the smallest a Red Bull has had over another team so far this season, giving encouragement to the chasing pack.
But it was clear that 25-year-old Verstappen had not needed to extend himself and could almost certainly have won by a far larger margin.
And his achievement in matching Senna’s career achievement when nine years younger than the legendary Brazilian was when he was killed in a crash at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, underlined the way he and Red Bull have dominated F1 for the past two seasons.
It also raises the question of where Verstappen’s career statistics may end – only Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Hamilton are ahead of him in victories and Prost’s mark of 51 and even Vettel’s 54 may be reachable during this season, depending on the level of his dominance.
Verstappen converted a brilliant pole position won in the wet, 1.2 seconds clear of the field, into a lead at the first corner and never looked back as he measured his pace to the intense battles behind him.
Hamilton started third, one place behind Alonso, but the Mercedes driver passed the Aston Martin into the first corner after a strong start.
Alonso tracked the Mercedes closely for the first part of the race, occasionally threatening down the back straight before the final chicane.
But Hamilton managed to hang on in second until a safety car was called on lap 12 when the second Mercedes driver George Russell hit the wall at Turn Nine, leaving debris on the track.
At the restart, Alonso began to challenge the Mercedes more closely and after a few laps of pressure edged close enough to pull a move into the final chicane on lap 23.
From then on, Alonso edged clear and although Hamilton switched to the medium tyres at his second pit stop while the Spaniard stuck with the hards they had used for their second stint, the seven-time champion could do nothing about his old rival.
In the final laps, Hamilton was told Alonso appeared to be nursing a rear brake problem. The Briton moved back towards him, but Alonso then began to edge away again as the three biggest names in F1 completed an all-star podium.
Russell remarkably rejoined after a pit stop following his collision with the wall and ran beyond three-quarters distance before Mercedes asked him to retire the car. – www.bbc.com