Verstappen crushes opposition with dominant Styrian Grand Prix win

For the first time since the dawn of the Formula 1 turbo-hybrid era, Mercedes slumped to four winless races in a row after another Max Verstappen masterclass in the Styrian Grand Prix.

Verstappen brilliantly controlled all 71 laps and was untroubled en route to a crushing win, tightening his grip on the world championship trophy.

The Red Bull driver qualified on pole yesterday and translated the strong starting position into an early race lead.

Once Verstappen settled into his rhythm, the race was won.

A simple one-stop strategy meant Lewis Hamilton never closed the margin as the Brit circled around in second all race.

The defending world champion did make a second stop on the penultimate lap to snag the fastest lap at the death, snaring an extra championship point.

However, Verstappen thumped the opposition and finished 35 seconds up on Hamilton.

Valtteri Bottas jumped ahead of Sergio Perez during the pitstop sequence as the second Red Bull car had to wait for his mechanics to change a stubborn wheel.

The lengthy stop meant that when Bottas pitted moments later, the Finn leapfrogged ahead of his rival.

Red Bull rolled the dice with Perez, and on lap 55, he was whistled in for a surprise second pitstop.

When he re-joined the race, his deficit to Bottas exceeded 20 seconds.

But Perez dug deep on his fresh rubber and began reeling in the Mercedes.

When the final lap board came out, the gap was just over a second.

Still, Perez pushed Bottas hard over the final lap, eventually coming up shy as Bottas clung onto third by half a second.

Lando Norris continued his perfect record of scoring in every race with another fifth-place finish.

Carlos Sainz was sixth ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc who executed a final stint charge from outside the points.

Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso and Yuki Tsunoda earned the final few points.

George Russell was a heart-breaking DNF after being nestled in the top-ten for most of the race and looked to be set to score his first points of the season.

However, he lost lots of time as his Williams team had to top up the pneumatic pressure in his power unit twice during the race before retiring.