Max Verstappen may have been struggling with the grip and balance of his car so far in this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, but his dominance remains, even when wrestling with the all-conquering Red Bull. He still enjoyed enough of an advantage to take a huge victory in Saturday’s sprint race.
There is no doubt that Verstappen and Red Bull will bring more to the table in a race this weekend, having won the previous two races, with the Dutchman looking to further fine-tune the car in qualifying and the race, but The top six remained unchanged in another rather tame sprint, with his performance good enough to push Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc into second place and his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Sergio Pérez was third.
Behind them, however, was Daniel Ricciardo, who put in perhaps the most impressive performance, holding the RB position and punching well beyond Its weight is a timely reminder of Australian talent. He did well in holding off Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, but in doing so showed that the trickiest track for overtaking is not the place for a 100km sprint.
Likewise, on the track, Lewis Hamilton endured a battle with Haas’s Kevin Magnussen for almost the entire race, with the Dane also creating a train in his wake , but to no avail for either driver. Magnussen received no less than four penalties for his overly aggressive defending and was demoted to 18th, while Hamilton had already endured a difficult weekend and found himself dropped to 16th for speeding in the pit lane bit. The British driver made an opportunistic move to the inside at Turn 1 from the start, a lunge that caused Fernando Alonso to crash into his teammate Lance Stroll, who Stroll caught Lando Norris’ McLaren, knocking him out of the race.
It was classified as a racing incident but it was a clear indication that with Mercedes so out of pace at Miami, Hamilton felt he had nothing to lose. “There was a gap inside, so I went for it,” he told his team.
It was a win for Verstappen but he admitted the team still had more work to do after he opened up a 3.3-second advantage over Leclerc, nowhere near the level he achieved during the final sprint in China. 13 seconds lead. “We can widen the gap a little bit, but it’s not completely perfect,” he said. “We still have some work to do and we can fine-tune the car. It feels really good in China, it’s a bit difficult for me here, so there’s a lot to improve.
Following the surprise announcement on Wednesday that the team’s highly successful car designer Adrian Newey would be leaving Red Bull next season, Verstappen gave no indication that he had any qualms about the decision. He once again made a perfect pole position to take victory and now leads Perez by 27 points in the world championship.
This is Verstappen’s ninth win after winning the 2021 British Grand Prix, Imola and Austria in 2022, Austria, Belgium, the United States and Brazil last year, and the last round of China this season. Sprint victory. He has criticized the format on several occasions but has shown excellent control over it since its introduction.
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This is the second sprint race weekend of the year and the first time Miami has hosted a 100-kilometer race. Many drivers don’t like this track, not least because of its dominance of slow corners and lack of overtaking opportunities, so it’s not suitable for the dynamic sprints that F1 wants to do and often still falls into queues.
Four more sprint weekends will be held this year in Austria, Austin, Brazil and Qatar.
Sainz was fifth, Piastri sixth, Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg seventh and RB’s Yuki Tsunoda eighth.
