Verstappen feels for Leclerc after his crash: "I hope he is OK"

Verstappen happy with pace of RB18

Verstappen can be satisfied after the race at Paul Ricard. His title rival takes home zero points through an own mistake and the Dutchman was once again ahead of teammate Sergio Perez. The Mexican was asleep in the closing stages of the race during the safety car restart and was overtaken by George Russell for P3.

After the race, Verstappen reacted to his victory in conversation with David Coulthard. "I think we had really good pace from the start. I was putting pressure on Charles, but following around here with this heat, the tyres are overheating a lot. I could never really go for a move, only once into turn 11. We just tried to stay calm, tried to stay close."

"We pitted a bit earlier. From there onwards you never know how the race is going to go. The car was quick today, and of course unlucky for Charles, I hope he’s okay. From there onwards I just did my race. I looked after the tyres, because of the pitlane being so long," continued the Dutchman.

Red Bull must work on qualifying pace

"I always try to get as many points as possible. Sometimes you just have to pull out and wait for the end of the race. That's what we did. There are still plenty of races to come where we need to score points. In that respect, I think today was a great day."

The next race is the Hungarian Grand Prix, the last race before the summer break. Verstappen stressed that Red Bull does need to improve on its qualifying pace. "We still have some work ahead of us, especially in single lap, so we just keep working," he said.