Perez admits ‘nothing I could have done’ to stop Verstappen

Verstappen was in imperious form as he recovered from sixth on the grid and overtook teammate Perez on his way to claiming an eighth consecutive victory before the final race before F1’s summer break. 

The Dutchman quickly hunted down Perez and cruised past the Mexican at the first time of asking as soon as he got within DRS range on the Kemmel Straight after just 17 laps. 

A 10th win from 12 races has extended Verstappen’s championship lead to 125 points and Perez conceded afterwards that his teammate was in another league on Sunday. 

"It was a good race for the team,” Perez said after the race. 

"We had a great start and managed to get through Charles, which was one of the targets of today. 

“From then on, I was just doing my own race and Max came through in the second stint pretty fast. There was nothing I could have done there. 

“Afterwards it was just about making sure we brought it home safely without too much damage to the car.” 

Perez said he was relieved to have overcome his recent “rough patch” but admitted the summer break has come at the right time for him. 

“It’s been a bit of a rough patch, but we overcome and today we managed to score great points for the team,” he said. 

“I really need the summer break. It’s been really intense for the last few races. I look forward to it and will come back very strong.”

Verstappen said: "It's a new spot [winning from] P6. I knew that we had a great car and it was just about surviving Turn 1. I could see it getting really tight so I was just going to stay out of that and it worked out.

"From there onwards we made the right overtakes and moves. I got a bit stuck in a DRS train at the start but once that cleared I could do my own pace. Again, really enjoyable.”