Starting from third on the grid, Verstappen quickly found himself up to second place after overtaking former Toro Rosso teammate Caꦰrlos Sainz around the o🔯utside of Turn 1 on the opening lap.

It took only until Lap 9 for Verstappen to take the lead of the race, overtaking F1 title rival Charles Leclerc fo🌄r the victory.

It was a comfortable victory for Verstappen in the end, although he ha🍌d to fend off Leclerc’s charge after the Safety Car.

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It wasn’t a smooth weekend ♈up until that point with Verstappen missing the entirety of second practice due to technical gremlins.

Speaking after his third victory of the year, Verstappen stresseꦉd the importance of good reliability, particularly after he’s been forced to retire from two of the opening five rac💛es this year.

“We're still having a few issues we have to solve,” Verstappen said after the race. “I mean we are quick, but as you can see, my Friday was terri﷽ble, you know, which꧑ is not great if you want to have a good weekend.

“And also Checo had a few issues in the race, so we have to be on top of that, but clearlyౠ there is a lot of potential, we just need to make sure it's rel꧒iable.”

Verstappen believes Red𒆙 Bull’s reliability issues are too frequent if it wants to ha𝓀ve an easier time in the championship battle against Ferrari this year.

“I mean, of course, now my side, I had a lot of issues on Friday, which compromises your weekend, and especially yesterday,” Verstappen explained. “And I mean, of course, the day everything we♕nt well with the start but it also could have been the other way around.

“And then you꧃ of course again, can say like, well, fair enough, because if you missed almost whole Friday, what can you do about it? So we just have to nail down a really positive weekend without issues. I think of course, Imola, we had that, but it's still a bit of a hit and miss too much.

“So we just have to make sure that we are more reliable and more on top of things. Bu🦹t as you ﷺcan see the car is quick. I'm very happy about that, I mean, if you would be slow and reliable, that's probably also not a good thing.”

Engine issue costs Perez potential win?

Red Bull teammate Se𝐆rgio Perez secured fourth but it was a case of ‘what if’ for the Mexican.

Perez was ru🧸nning with🍸in a second of Carlos Sainz ahead but complained of a ‘loss of power’ on Lap 20.

The issue cost him around six seconds but Red Bull were able to find a fix, with a sensor thought to be th♛e cause of the problem♋.

Once it was fixed, Perez was down on power - around 20ꦉhp according to Red Bull team boss Christian Horneܫr - thus he was unable to make the most of his medium tyres when he was the only driver in the top four to stop.

“I was in a great spot [after the Safety Car],” Perez said. “Even with the DRS I couldn’t get close to Carlos. The deficit on the straight was quite high and I was just pushi꧙ng really hard to stay close to him on the corners.

“My tyres were overheating🅠 so as soon as I had a little opport🌌unity I went for it. It was too dirty offline and after that I couldn’t get close. The deficit on the straight line was big.”

Explaining🙈 the engine issue further, Perez added: “I think it was a sensor issue. It was working well but then when we had this sensor issue we lost like seven seconds in two laps and then yeah, it was just a poor race.

“It was never the same. I was losing too much time. It was like 10kph down on the straights. we need to keep working hard because every time we♈ finding different issues and luckily we managed to finish the race. I think at one point it was really close to be over. So yeah to get that, and to be able to finish the race is good.”