Verstappen holds off Sainz in thrilling battle to seal Canadian GP victory

Max Verstappen held off Carlos Sainz in a thrilling battle to claim the first Canadian GP victory of his career in an action-packed race in Montreal.

A late Safety Car, which followed two earlier virtual interruptions, at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve set up a gripping finale, but Verstappen superbly defended the Ferrari of Sainz - despite having older tyres on his Red Bull - to extend his world championship lead to 46 points.

Lewis Hamilton managed to find some pace - in a Mercedes he described as "undriveable" on Friday - to claim a first podium since the opening race of the season, while his team-mate George Russell followed in fourth.

Having been forced to start from the back row of the grid after taking a new power unit for the race, Charles Leclerc recovered to finish fifth in the other Ferrari, while Sergio Perez's hopes of challenging his Red Bull team-mate for the world championship suffered a major blow as an early gearbox failure ended a terrible weekend for the Mexican after he crashed out of qualifying on Saturday.

While Verstappen was always likely to extend his championship lead with his nearest challengers starting so far down the grid, his maturity and composure in denying Sainz a maiden F1 victory was an ominous showing in terms of his rapidly strengthening title defence.

The Dutchman, who was driving in his 150th Grand Prix, has now won six of nine races this season, with two early-season retirements caused by reliability issues now seeming a distant memory.

Ferrari, aided by Sainz scoring an extra point for the fastest lap of the race, were at least able to narrowly reduce Red Bull's advantage in the constructors' championship to 76 points.

Fernando Alonso, who started second after a throwback