Perfect ten for Verstappen as he wins Italian Grand Prix

Another F1 record went tumbling at the feet of Max Verstappen on Sunday as he claimed his tenth straight win in the Italian Grand Prix.

Unbeaten since the end of April, Verstappen’s win at the historic Monza circuit surpasses Sebastian Vettel’s nine wins in a row in 2013, and puts him in firm control of the championship standings as a third straight title now looks a formality.

But for 15 laps at the start of Sunday’s Grand Prix, it threatened to be a different story. Beaten to pole position on Saturday by home crowd favourite Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari, the Spanish racer led the way.

Verstappen though bided his time and put the Ferrari under pressure, leading to a mistake into the first chicane, and the Red Bull man pounced around Curve Grande to lead and never look back.

“Ten wins in a row is a record I am very happy about,” he said. “It is something you don’t even think about trying to achieve because it is very unlikely that those kinds of things happen. I am very proud it has happened and proud of what the team has done.

“I had to be patient today to get the win, Ferrari had a lot of top speed all weekend and I think when you look at our rear wing we had to trim down our top flap, so our DRS the whole weekend wasn’t as effective as normal. That meant we could never have a good run down into turn one, so I had to be patient and force Carlos into a mistake.”

Team-mate Sergio Perez completed a great day for the team from Tilbrook, passing George Russell’s Mercedes and the two Ferraris of Sainz and Charles Leclerc to finish second behind Verstappen.

He said: “It is really satisfying to achieve P2 today and it has been a brilliant day for the team.

“Overtaking was really difficult on this track and the Ferraris were very fast on the straights so it was hard to make my way through the field. We had some tough racing, but I fought really hard to overtake and gave it my all and it paid off.

“We didn’t get to show it (in qualifying), but it’s been a strong weekend in terms of performance. I feel like my form is fully back and I hope we can have a very strong end to the season.”