Pierre Gasly made the session a Red Bull-back 1-2, albeit with the sister AlphaTauri car, 0.
Perez made his extra pit stop for fresh tyres on lap 54 and quickly raced back to Bottas' tail, but could not find a late way past the Mercedes and so stayed fourth.
That proved successful, meaning Verstappen increased his title lead by one less point than would have otherwise been the case, but it was still a sobering afternoon for F1's world champion driver and team.