The defending champion stretched his points lead over Charles Leclerc by taking control of events at Spa, moving into first place as early as lap 12 of 44 before cruising to a 18s win.
With the Red Bull RB18 proving so effective in a straight line to allow Perez to dart past polesitter Carlos Sainz on the long Kemmel Straight, the Mexican brought home second.
Meanwhile, Sainz completed the podium ahead of George Russell as Lewis Hamilton retired following an opening lap crash with former McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso.
Despite topping qualifying over Sainz by a mighty 0.6s, Verstappen was dropped into the pack for exceeding his allocation of power units - but an electrical glitch on the grid for AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly promoted Verstappen to start 13th, one spot over Leclerc.
That appeared to leave it up to second-starting Perez to take the fight to Sainz, but he fluffed his launch to drop to fifth into Les Combes behind both Mercedes and Alonso.
With the medium tyre RB18 bogging down, soft-starting Sainz was afforded an easy run through La Source to consolidate first place ahead of the Alpine as Hamilton tucked into Alonso’s tow on the climb up the hill.
But the pair made contact into Les Combes. Alonso appeared to be fully over the inside kerb, but was pinched by the W13 as Hamilton’s rear-right clonked the Spaniard’s front-left tyre.
That launched the Mercedes’ back axle into the air and although the seven-time champion initially rejoined, he was very slow and swiftly parked up with a loss of water pressure.
The yellow flags then morphed into a full safety car after Nicholas Latifi and Valtteri Bottas came to blows at the exit of the chicane, with the Alfa Romeo ending up in the gravel.
As 14th-starting Ocon messed up the corner to run over the inside sausage kerb, it appeared to put Latifi off line as he ran wide and kissed the gravel to pitch the Williams into a spin.
Bottas was innocently collected and turned around to retire. However, both this and the Alonso-Hamilton bash passed without penalties after investigation.
However, Hamilton was given with a warning for not visiting the medical centre despite his shunt exceeding the stipulated impact limit.
Sainz lost his initial 2.1s lead over Perez to the safety car as Russell slotted into third ahead of Russell and a flying Sebastian Vettel, the retiring Aston Martin driver rising from ninth.
Leclerc, meanwhile, was forced to pit at the end of lap three after a visor tear-off had lodged itself in his front-right brake duct to cause overheating and reports of smoke.
He was stopped from ninth, one spot behind title rival Verstappen, for mediums.
As the safety car peeled in at the end of lap four, Sainz led a very slow restart and even locked up into the Bus Stop chicane but a fine exit kept him clear of Perez.
The RB18 driver duly locked up into La Source, forcing him to worry about Russell behind as Sainz pulled a 1.2s gap.
Meanwhile, Verstappen picked off Daniel Ricciardo and then used DRS to fly past Alonso for fourth place on the Kemmel Straight with 1.6s to find to the Mercedes ahead. But that only took until lap eight before Verstappen dragged past Russell to get one foot on the podium.
The 2.6s deficit to Perez was soon eviscerated by Verstappen, but he was delayed getting past his team-mate, who didn’t give way as easily as he could have done into Les Combes.
But with an early fastest lap effort under his belt, and having complained about the “silly” amount of time lost, Verstappen closed and slipstreamed past out of Eau Rouge.
With Ferrari pitting Sainz for a set of mediums at the end of lap 11 before losing time rejoining behind Ricciardo, Verstappen’s initial ascent to first place had been completed.
Such was Verstappen’s prowess that despite running the more delicate soft tyres in warmer temperatures than experienced at any point in the weekend, he was more able to eek life out of them than renowned tyre whisperer Perez on the mediums.
So much so, Red Bull pitted Perez at the end of lap 14 for another set of the yellow-walled tyres while Verstappen stayed out and continued to nurse his C4s.
With Perez effectively keeping Leclerc at bay as he rejoined, the Red Bull squeezing the Ferrari on the outside into Les Combes to the point where the pair made brief contact.
Verstappen eventually came into the pits at the end of lap 15 as his levels of traction deteriorated, Red Bull swapping him into mediums to rejoin in front of Perez.
That left Sainz with a 4.7s cushion to protect the win, the Ferrari’s mediums now four laps old. But Verstappen tore chunks out the gap and on lap 17 was on the F1-75’s rear.
First place and the eventual win would effectively be decided when Verstappen powered up Eau Rouge and used DRS to leap Sainz into Les Combes.
Three tours later, Perez was right on the Ferrari and sold Sainz a dummy on the Kemmel Straight to power around the outside for second place and a Red Bull 1-2.
Sainz would pit for his second stop on lap 25, switching to hards as Leclerc was moved onto mediums. Verstappen would make his final visit to the pits of lap 30 for mediums and returned with an 8s lead over Perez.
Lapping consistently seven tenths faster than his stablemate, Verstappen was able to cross the line with fastest lap to claim the spoils by 17.8s and edge closer to a 100-point lead.
With Perez on the hard tyre to cover off Sainz, the Mexican crossed the line 9s ahead of the lead Ferrari as Russell ran to fourth another 2.2s in arrears.
Leclerc was pitted on the penultimate lap for a switch to softs in a bid to nick the point for fastest lap off Verstappen. But on cool tyres, was released into the path of Alonso.
The Alpine picked off the Ferrari for fifth, and while Leclerc recovered the place on the last lap, he missed the bonus point and was then knocked back to sixth owing to a 5s penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Ocon crossed the line in seventh, helped by a glorious double overtake on the Kemmel Straight as he picked up a powerful tow from Sebastian Vettel and Pierre Gasly.
Vettel, meanwhile, led the French driver as Williams’ Alex Albon completed the top 10.
For much of the second half, Albon kept a train of cars at bay – the queue led by Lance Stroll and then Lando Norris, Yuki Tsunoda, Zhou Guanyu and Danuel Ricciardo.
Kevin Magnussen led team-mate Mick Schumacher for 16th and 17th as Latifi eventually finished in 18th.
F1 Belgian Grand Prix - Race Results
| Cla | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 Max Verstappen |
 |
Red Bull | Red Bull | 44 | 1:25'52.894 | ||
| 2 |
 Sergio Perez |
|
Red Bull | Red Bull | 44 | 1:26'10.735 | 17.841 | 17.841 |
| 3 |
 Carlos Sainz |
 |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 44 | 1:26'19.780 | 26.886 | 9.045 |
| 4 |
 George Russell |
 |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 44 | 1:26'22.034 | 29.140 | 2.254 |
| 5 |
Fernando Alonso |
 |
Alpine | Renault | 44 | 1:27'06.150 | 1'13.256 | 44.116 |
| 6 |
 Charles Leclerc |
 |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 44 | 1:27'07.830 | 1'14.936 | 1.680 |
| 7 |
 Esteban Ocon |
 |
Alpine | Renault | 44 | 1:27'08.534 | 1'15.640 | 0.704 |
| 8 |
 Sebastian Vettel |
 |
Aston Martin | Mercedes | 44 | 1:27'11.001 | 1'18.107 | 2.467 |
| 9 |
Pierre Gasly |
 |
AlphaTauri | Red Bull | 44 | 1:27'25.075 | 1'32.181 | 14.074 |
| 10 |
 Alex Albon |
 |
Williams | Mercedes | 44 | 1:27'34.794 | 1'41.900 | 9.719 |
| 11 |
 Lance Stroll |
 |
Aston Martin | Mercedes | 44 | 1:27'35.972 | 1'43.078 | 1.178 |
| 12 |
Lando Norris |
 |
McLaren | Mercedes | 44 | 1:27'37.633 | 1'44.739 | 1.661 |
| 13 |
 Yuki Tsunoda |
 |
AlphaTauri | Red Bull | 44 | 1:27'38.111 | 1'45.217 | 0.478 |
| 14 |
 Zhou Guanyu |
 |
Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 44 | 1:27'39.146 | 1'46.252 | 1.035 |
| 15 |
 Daniel Ricciardo |
 |
McLaren | Mercedes | 44 | 1:27'40.057 | 1'47.163 | 0.911 |
| 16 |
 Kevin Magnussen |
 |
Haas | Ferrari | 43 | 1:25'53.332 | 1 Lap | 1 Lap |
| 17 |
Mick Schumacher |
 |
Haas | Ferrari | 43 | 1:25'56.152 | 1 Lap | 2.820 |
| 18 |
Nicholas Latifi |
|
Williams | Mercedes | 43 | 1:26'03.792 | 1 Lap | 7.640 |
 Valtteri Bottas |
 |
Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 1 | 2'05.651 | 43 Laps | 42 Laps | |
|
Lewis Hamilton |
 |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 0 | ||||
| View full results | ||||||||
