Title holder Verstappen won the 23-lap event from pole ahead of Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz and the victory also gives him pole position for Sunday's full race. George Russell was fourth for Mercedes, Sergio Perez rose from 13th at the start to fifth in the other Red Bull, and Russell's team-mate Lewis Hamilton salvaged at least one point in eighth - the day after he and Russell had both crashed in qualifying. Verstappen tops the championship with 189 points and is now 38 points ahead of Perez and 44 clear of Leclerc, and like two months at the Emilia-Romagna GP will be eyeing full 34 points from sprint and race wins plus fastest lap Sunday. "It was a decent race. We had good start in the beginning and after that we were very closely matched. It was good, it was like a sprint should go, quite flat out," said Verstappen who won in front of thousands of fellow Dutch fans in the stands. "In the first few laps [the Ferraris] were also fighting a little bit, so I had a bit of a gap. After that I think we were quite similar in pace. "I think tomorrow it's going to be a quite interesting battle again. The car is good. There's a few things to fine tune but overall we have been really competitive again this weekend." Leclerc said: "Tomorrow is the race and hopefully we can have as good a start as today and put a bit more pressure on Max. "I had a small fight with Carlos and towards the end I started to push. I was gaining a little bit, but it was very close overall." The original start was aborted and another formation lap ordered after Zhou Guanyu's Alfa Romeo stalled, got going again but had to start from the pitlane. That was still better than Fernando Alonso who had to retire his Alpine with a technical problem before the start. Verstappen narrowly won the start while Sainz passed Leclerc in turn one, only to loose second place again to his team-mate later in the opening lap. Further back Pierre Gasly's Alpha Tauri was spun around after contact with Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes but able to continue. He later also touched with Sebastian Vettel whose Aston Martin spun off. Verstappen pulled away up front as the two Ferraris battled fiercely for second place and was never troubled en route to victory and pole position Sunday. Valtteri Bottas of Alfa Romeo will meanwhile start the race race from the back of the grid over power unit change penalties.