Leclerc got off the line well, battling Verstappen through the early laps, while Red Bull’s speed on the straights posed a serious threat to a Ferrari line-up boosting Le Castellet’s pace through the corners.
The baking heat and lack of relative power in the DRS system made overtaking more difficult than expected as the balance between one-stop and two-stop strategies began to shift towards the latter.
Lewis Hamilton took third off Sergio Perez at the start and he too held off Red Bull’s early attack before settling into a solid groove in his 300th F1 race.
Indeed, as in Austria a week ago, Verstappen found his promise evaporating in the sun of the south of France – until, not for the first time this season, he saw a gift-wrapped victory just around the corner.
Leclerc lost his butt at Le Beausset and spun into the wall, letting out a bloodcurdling scream over the team radio as he cursed a disastrous exit from the race and, as some may now predict, the battle for the championship.
That left Hamilton behind Verstappen at the end of the subsequent safety car period, Sergio Perez challenged the Briton from third with George Russell in fourth.
Carlos Sainz, who started 19th due to engine errors and showed a good pace despite traffic, had forced himself onto the podium before receiving a five-second time penalty for an unsafe release in the safety car pit scramble.
A bumpy excursion at Turn 2 left Hamilton nearly six seconds off the lead, while Verstappen looked all set to win the race and a 68 point lead on top of the title standingsand Perez imagined his chances of completing a Red Bull 1-2.
Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari gets towed from his French Grand Prix crash
/ AFP via Getty ImagesHamilton pulled away and Sainz overtook Perez before Russell was dismissed in a very late dive that the Mexican defended well and apparently annoyed his young rival.
Russell needn’t have been too upset when Ferrari finally dropped Sainz into the pits after multiple exchanges of indecision over the team radio, pushing him up to fourth as the battle with Perez continued.
A virtual safety car for Zhou Guanyu stopping on track with a late retirement neutralized the fight for a final push from Russell, which he completed with gusto immediately after the restart in the last sector to secure a valuable double podium finish for Mercedes. pose while Verstappen crossed home.