After leading away from pole position, Verstappen was headed for just a single lap during the 58-lap race, with Leclerc briefly in the lead as the double champion made his sole pit stop of the race.
With Verstappen in complete control, the focus turned to the battle between Pérez and Leclerc for the runners-up spot in the Drivers’ standings.
By lap 10 Verstappen was 2.6s ahead of his team-mate and Perez had almost three-seconds in hand over third-place Leclerc. Perez was the first of the frontrunners to stop and he made his way towards the pit lane on lap 16.
He switched to Hard compound tyres in 2.4s and after dismissing Fernando Alono and Sebastian Vettel he climbed to fifth place and then rose to third as Carlos Sainz Jr. and Lewis Hamilton pitted.
Verstappen then made his sole pit stop, for Hard tyres, on lap 21 and Leclerc took the lead for a single lap. The Ferrari driver then made his first pit stop and Verstappen and Perez resumed control the race.
He was now 18 seconds back from one-stopping Leclerc who was now second. The Mexican chased down the Mercedes AMG driver but lost time in passing Hamilton and with 10 laps to go he was 10 seconds behind the Monegasque driver.
With five laps left Checo had narrowed the gap to just over four seconds and ahead of the final lap he closed to within two seconds of the Ferrari. But the Ferrari driver’s tyres were just holding on and though Checo pushed all the way to the flag he ran out of time and laps to mount an attack and second place in the Championship sliped away.
At the front, Verestappen took a record-breaking 15th win of the season with almost nine seconds in hand over Lelerc. The Ferrari driver’s second place, just 1.3 second ahead of the hard-charging Checo sealed P2 in the standings, three points ahead of the Red Bull driver who claimed his 11th podium finish of the season.
Behind them, Carlos Sainz Jr. took fourth place for Ferrari after Hamilton was forced to retire his Mercedes AMG with a suspected hydraulics failure late in the race. George Russell, in the second Mercedes AMG, finished fifth, while Lando Norris fought off a late charge by Esteban Ocon to seal sixth by 1.0 second.
Lance Stroll finished eighth, while Daniel Ricciardo closed out his McLaren career with two points for ninth place. The final point on offer went to Sebastian Vettel. The German was competing in his 299th and final grand prix.
"I think it's a huge privilege being in the position that we are in and with that comes some responsibility. So I hope to pass on a little bit to the other drivers to carry on some of the good work."
"It's great to see that, you know, we have the power to inspire with what we do and what we say. I think there are far bigger and far more important things than racing in circles, but obviously it's what we love and through that if we can transfer some of the really important values that's big."
"So thank you for the support. Thank you for the messages, the letters and all the love in general. So yeah, I will miss that. But it's been an absolute joy throughout my career, so thank you."
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