Verstappen came out on top of an intense French Grand Prix to overhaul main F1 rival Hamilton with an overtake on the penultimate lap to 🥃claim his thir🐻d victory of the season, having capitalised on Red Bull’s brilliant strategy gamble.

A two-stop strategy ultimatelyꦚ proved decisive in the bat🍨tle for the win with Mercedes keeping Hamilton out on a one-stopper, which turned out to be a strategic error.

“As you could see 🐼the whole race we were fighting each other,” Verstappen said. “It will be like this for the rest of the season.

“It was difficult because there wer⛎e quite a lot of backmarkers to go through but luckily they all did well and🦩 we could have a good fight to the end.

“At the beginning, it was a little bit difficult with the winꦦd, so one lap we had an OK balance but then the next lap we were just sliding everywhere,” he added. “It was really difficult to keep the car stable.

“Once we made the first pit stop then you could clearly see on the hard tyres they were pushing me hard from behind but then we made🦹 the call to do a two-stop, lucki꧃ly in the end it paid off but we had to work hard for it. Of course, very rewarding.”

Verstappen’s victory came after he had gꦇifted Hamilton th꧅e lead at the start when he ran wide at the first corner.

Asked what happened into Turn 1, Verstappen replied: “I just lost the rear, tha♕t’s all. Just tried to correct it, correct it, correct it but it just kept going.”

The Dutchman has now moved into a 12-point champ𝐆ionship lead after the first seven races of the season.