Max Verstappen cruised to victory ahead of Sergio Perez in a Red Bull one-two finish at 2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Verstappen led comfortably from pole throughout without any challenge from Perez who fought off Charles Leclerc for much of the race, until the Monegasque spun on Lap 53 to eventually drop him to sixth as Lando Norris finished third for McLaren.
For Red Bull, this result also represented their first one-two finish since the 2016 Malaysian Grand Prix.
George Russell fended off Valtteri Bottas for fourth as Leclerc, Yuki Tsunoda, Sebastian Vettel, Kevin Magnussen and Lance Stroll rounded out the top ten.
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton finished 14th after he lost out in the pit stops following contact from Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.
In the driver standings, Leclerc saw his lead in the title race cut to 27 points as Verstappen collected a maximum points haul of 34 points to climb to second in the championship, with Perez a further five points behind his teammate in third.
Having experienced overnight rain which led to a wet-to-dry F3 race this morning plus a dry F2 race, torrential rain swept in during the Porsche Supercup race before abating around an hour before the F1 race start.
All 20 drivers consequently faced damp conditions on the way to the grid, which meant that everyone opted to start on the intermediate tyres as the circuit continued to dry out amidst threats of further showers.
At lights out, Verstappen got a clean start to lead Perez who leapfrogged Leclerc off the line as the Monegasque then lost third into Tamburello to Norris.
Just behind the front quartet, Daniel Ricciardo unintentionally spun Sainz out of the race at Tamburello mid-corner whilst Schumacher spun following contact with Alonso but it was the Spaniard who ended up worse off as he retired on Lap Seven due to bodywork damage.
Russell meanwhile took advantage of the chaos to improve from 11th to sixth as the Safety Car was deployed until the end of Lap Four, with Verstappen enjoying a clean restart as Leclerc waited until Lap Eight before clearing Norris for third.
Vettel meanwhile cleared Alonso on the restart whilst Russell found himself stuck behind Magnussen until he made a late move into Variante Alta on Lap 12 with Bottas following suit a lap later at Rivazza.
Ricciardo triggered the switch from intermediate tyres to slick tyres as he stopped early on Lap 17 with everyone else following suit across the next three laps, during which Lewis Hamilton lost out after he made contact with Ocon who was unsafely released from his stop.
Ocon consequently received a five-second time penalty as the race settled into a lengthy quiet phrase with Verstappen building a huge gap of over 10s to Perez and Leclerc, during which Schumacher and Perez had wide moments at Alta on Laps 24 and 28 respectively.
DRS wasn’t enabled until Lap 34 due to the initial damp conditions but failed to make any real impact throughout the second half of the race, during which Hamilton found himself stuck behind Pierre Gasly in a fight for 13th position.
Up front, Leclerc gambled on a second stop for softs at the start of Lap 50 with Perez and Verstappen following suit to cover any threat, which saw the championship leader reduce his gap to Perez in their fight for second.
Leclerc however made a mistake and spun into the barriers at Alta chasing Perez on Lap 53 which dropped him to ninth, after another stop but he was able to recover to sixth after overtaking Magnussen, Vettel and Tsunoda in the closing stages.
Verstappen meanwhile cruised to victory with the fastest lap to claim a maximum 34 points from this weekend, following his win in the Sprint yesterday (23 April) with Perez finishing 16.527s behind in second.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 63 | 1h 32m 07.986 |
| 2 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull | 63 | +16.527 |
| 3 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 63 | +34.834 |
| 4 | George Russell | Mercedes | 63 | + 42.506 |
| 5 | Valtteri Bottas | Alfa Romeo | 63 | + 43.181 |
| 6 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 63 | + 56.072 |
| 7 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | 63 | + 61.110 |
| 8 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin | 63 | + 70.892 |
| 9 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | 63 | + 75.260 |
| 10 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 62 | + 1 Lap |
| 11 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | 62 | + 1 Lap |
| 12 | Alex Albon | Williams | 62 | + 1 Lap |
| 13 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | 62 | + 1 Lap |
| 14 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 62 | + 1 Lap |
| 15 | Guanyu Zhou | Alfa Romeo | 62 | + 1 Lap |
| 16 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | 62 | + 1 Lap |
| 17 | Mick Schumacher | Haas | 62 | + 1 Lap |
| 18 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | 62 | + 1 Lap |
| 19 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine | 6 | Bodywork |
| RET | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | 0 | Collision |
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