The Dutchman was in a league of his own in a Chinese Grand Prix punctuated by two mid-race safety cars in quick succession, even over his team-mate Sergio Perez.
The world champion converted his pole position into a lead at the first corner while Perez was passed around the outside by Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin, which started third.
It took Perez until lap five to pass Alonso, by which time Verstappen was five seconds up the road.
And over the eight laps before his pit stop, Verstappen lapped at least 0.5 seconds faster than Perez to extend his lead to 10 seconds by the time he stopped for tyres for the first time on lap 13, a gap large enough for Red Bull to pit both cars on the same lap without losing any time.
The next demonstration of Verstappen’s superiority came three laps later when he caught and passed Leclerc – he had made up a pit stop’s worth of race time over a man battling for the final podium place in just 16 laps.
Perez looked to be cruising to a comfortable second place behind Verstappen, but the safety cars, which came in quick succession, changed the complexion of the race for the remaining podium places.
Norris put together an expertly managed second stint despite his team’s reservations about its pace in China and controlled second all the way to the end ahead of Perez in third.
Behind Leclerc, Sainz nursed older tyres to make it a Ferrari four-five ahead of Russell, while behind them Alonso provided some late entertainment.
Unusually, Aston Martin chose soft tyres for the veteran Spaniard when they stopped under the safety car, which meant another pit stop on lap 44, with 12 to go.
The stop dropped Alonso to 11th place, but he used his fresh medium tyres to carve through the field, passing Esteban Ocon’s Alpine, Hulkenberg, Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to take seventh.
Oscar Piastri held off Lewis Hamilton for eighth despite damage to his diffuser with Nico Hulkenberg picking up the final point.
