Max Verstappen delivered another dominant performance as he overcame the disadvantage of a five-place grid penalty to race to a comfortable win at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday afternoon.

The superiority of the Red Bull car was once again obvious as they finished first and second and completely dominated the race.

Charles Leclerc, who started in poll after Verstappen’s penalty, trailed home in third. But it was a disappointing race for the Ferrari driver who was passed at the first bend by an aggressive Sergio Perez.

The inclement weather that had been forecast failed to arrive and the race turned into something of a procession as Red Bull dominated from the front from start to finish.

It was a hatrick of wins for Verstappen in Belgium and his 10th win of the season. As much as Red Bull dominated, Verstappen still finished more than 20 seconds ahead of his teammate, to once again underscore his complete dominance.

Speaking after the race Verstappen reflected on starting from sixth, saying: “It’s a new spot, that’s for sure – P6. I knew that we had a great car. It was just about surviving turn one.

“I could see it was all getting really tight. I’ve been in that position before myself, so I am just going to stay out of that, and it worked out. From there onwards I made the right overtakes, moves. I just got a little bit stuck in the beginning in a DRS Zone and once that cleared, I could just do my own thing – really enjoyable.”

Commenting on his exchanges with his engineer regarding the use of his tyres he added: “I did slow down.

“We all look at the numbers, we look at the wear on the tyres and this track is super-hard on the tyres. You don’t want to do any unnecessary things, and that’s what we did until the end,” he said.