How Verstappen deployed an under-appreciated strong suit to defeat Perez in Miami

Mathematically speaking, the odds weren’t quite on Max Verstappen’s side to win the Miami Grand Prix. Of the 1083 world championship events held prior to the Floridian race’s second edition, only four drivers had ever won from ninth place – the most recent being 39 years ago courtesy of Niki Lauda at the 1984 French Grand Prix. Surprisingly, just 0.37% of races had been won from ninth. For comparison, three more races have been won from 14th on the grid.

Thankfully for Red Bull, it appears to have a car that defies all mathematical principles. Verstappen has already converted lowly grid positions into big results so far this year. He turned 15th on the grid in Saudi Arabia, following his driveshaft issue in qualifying, into second as he executed a combative drive towards the front. Taking a win from ninth would hardly be a bridge too far given the colossal advantage held by the RB19 package.

A slip at Turn 5 on his first flying lap in Q3 led Verstappen to abort his qualifying lap in Miami, and a later Charles Leclerc crash – at the same Turn 7 scene that the Ferrari driver stuck his car in the wall in FP2 – annulled any further running in the session. Verstappen was visibly frustrated with himself, but had the bit between his teeth to make a recovery and deny team-mate Sergio Perez the chance to move into the championship lead. “Minimum P2” was Verstappen’s aim after qualifying in Miami.

The Miami circuit itself had been a somewhat capricious stretch of road in the lead-up to the race, thanks to a newly resurfaced track. After the track was built around the Hard Rock Stadium last year, the asphalt was jet-blasted to remove some of the oils rising to the surface, but the clean-up operation was considered too aggressive as it resulted in track break-up over the weekend. This year, the organisers elected not to clean the track in the same way – but at the expense of grip in the opening sessions.

Although the track remained slightly treacherous off-line, any errors from low-grip conditions were largely eradicated. Verstappen thus could not rely on the cars ahead of him to fall off the road and needed to make up ground himself, if he was going to stand a chance of working his way up the order. After a post-qualifying discussion with his engineers, he was in favour of trying a different tyre strategy compared to the expected medium-hard progression in what would ostensibly be a one-stop race.

“We were quite strongly opinionated on that already,” Verstappen explained with regards to starting on the hard tyre. “Then of course you have to discuss it with the team, with the strategists. They said in terms of race time, it was very close between doing a medium-hard or hard-medium. It didn't really matter. When you start on the hard, the risk is a bit higher because we only had one set, so if you have a puncture or whatever, then of course your race is a bit tougher. But I was happy to take that gamble.”

Perez avoided a repeat of Jeddah by staying ahead of Alonso off the line, as Verstappen had to be patient in the pack before picking off cars ahead

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Perez, along with the rest of the top seven starters on the grid, opted for that medium-hard strategy as the risk was magnified through his pole position. Verstappen effectively had nothing to lose by trying the contra-strategy, but his team-mate did. The Mexican also did not particularly want to suffer a repeat of the start in Saudi Arabia, where Fernando Alonso got past off the line and briefly led proceedings in Jeddah. Although it came to nothing as Perez reclaimed the position on that day, it created unwanted peril.

This time, Perez had the better start and covered off Alonso into the opening corner, hugging the inside line to make good his escape down the road. Rather than dilly-dally in the opening laps and risk Alonso tracking his movements in the first stint, Perez knew that he had to break the one-second barrier swiftly and forge a lead – not to ward off a potential charge from Alonso, but to cover off the charging Verstappen.

The Dutchman’s start was comparatively leisurely, and he was leapfrogged off the line by Valtteri Bottas, another driver done dirty by the Leclerc crash in Q3. But Verstappen quickly stabilised, reeling off passes on Bottas and Esteban Ocon in short order to join a burgeoning scrap between Kevin Magnussen and Leclerc. The two Ferrari-powered cars were trading places ahead but, at the start of the fourth lap, Verstappen went three-wide with them heading into the first corner and chalked off another two places as Magnussen retained his real estate ahead of Leclerc.

"I think [Perez] was driving well within himself and the car to protect that front-right" Christian Horner

This placed Verstappen in a smidgen of clear air and ample opportunity to log two fastest laps in succession, the turn of pace placing him behind George Russell’s Mercedes. Russell was being pulled along by Pierre Gasly ahead, which marginally delayed Verstappen’s progress but, by the eighth lap, Verstappen had use of the Red Bull’s powerful drag reduction system and slotted his car down the inside at Turn 17, bringing him into fifth place. Fifth became fourth a lap later, when Gasly was brushed aside in a near carbon copy of the prior move on Russell.

Perez, after the gap had initially stagnated between him and Alonso at around 1.6s, was now in the ascendancy having shaken off tyre management worries. Graining problems on the right-front tyre handed Perez a few concerns that he would not hit his tyre-life target, and so that early stagnation was largely a result of his conservatism in the opening 10 laps.

“Very early on, I saw that the medium was very fragile initially, so I had to protect the tyre quite a lot, just to make lap 15 or so,” said Perez. “It was really hard to lean on the tyre; the whole right-hand side was really difficult. I could see that Max was closing up on the hards. From that point on, I knew that the race was looking difficult.”

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner didn’t quite agree with his charge’s assessment, although he admitted that it was only through hindsight that he felt Perez had the materials to perhaps push a little harder.

“The first 10 laps, he was very much managing the pace,” Horner explained. “And I think he was nervous about the front-right. As we started to see other teams start to get a bit of graining I think he was driving well within himself and the car to protect that front-right.

Perez was concerned about keeping his right-front medium alive in the opening stint and Horner felt he could have pushed harder

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

“Then he started to push after the first 10 laps and start to build a lead. And I think probably with 20/20 hindsight, I think if you looked at the race again, he'd push harder in that first stint, because the medium tyre actually turned out to be a very good tyre as we saw with Fernando actually going quite a long way."

Perez’s lead by the 12th lap was now up to 2.4 seconds, and Alonso was now quibbling with countryman Carlos Sainz over third. This was music to the ears of Verstappen, who chased after the pair and dispatched the younger Spaniard on the 14th lap with a run into Turn 11, moving up to the podium with 43 laps still left to run. Alonso was next, and was moved aside at the same corner a lap later with apparent ease.

The gap between the two Red Bulls at the front was a fraction below 4s, although Perez was still finding it difficult to keep life in his front-right tyre and reported that it was beginning to “give up”. He held on until lap 20, by which time Verstappen had halved the initial gap to his team-mate, before calling in for a switch to the hard tyres to take him to the end. That’s not to say that the two-time champion was cruising around in serene seas, reporting that his upshifts were “not smooth”, but the lead was his for the time being.

Once Perez had got temperature into his hard tyres, his deficit to Verstappen was pegged at around 18s. Closing that down would require balancing outright pace with tyre management, as he had to cover 37 laps on the white-walled compound. Progress was slow but nonetheless tangible, and Perez had knocked a second out of that advantage by the time Alonso pitted from second for his own set of hard tyres on lap 24.

But Verstappen’s pace remained strong, and had broken consistently into the high 1m31s lap times as he simply aimed to preserve the gap. Perez’s first flurry of laps on his new tyres were faster and it helped him to continue chiselling away at the arrears, but the two drivers’ laps began to converge as the race moved beyond half-distance. Verstappen was given permission to lean on the tyres more as wear seemed less prevalent as the race progressed, the track beginning to rubber-in more consistently after overnight rain as the fuel burned off.

On the 32nd lap, the gap was at its smallest during the pit offset between the Red Bulls, and Perez had closed in to 14.8s of Verstappen. There was, however, management of Pirelli rubber materialising between both drivers; Verstappen was worried that he would be unable to hit his target pitstop lap and had begun to start conserving around the time of Perez’s stop.

Once the gap hit its slenderest, Verstappen received his radio call to start pushing once more and thus started to prise open his advantage once again. Prior to his pitstop at the end of the 45th lap, Verstappen had reclaimed the magnitude of the lead he’d held at the time of Perez’s pitstop, plus change.

"We had good pace, I could look after my tyres, and then once I was in clean air, it was just about getting to that lap number we targeted,” Verstappen reckoned. “Maybe in the middle of that stint I was not entirely sure if I was going to make it. But then as soon as I was getting close to the number, I said, ‘OK, this is good’. So then I started pushing, could extend the gap again, which really made my race today.”

Verstappen made quick progress through the pack on his hard tyres and kept them alive long enough to bring him within range of Perez by the time of his lap 45 stop

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

The two were split by 18.5s by the time Verstappen called in for the medium tyre and, although Perez hit the lead as a result, the two were separated by a scant 1.6s. This was not going to take Verstappen long, and he was in DRS reach as early as lap 46.

Perez didn’t quite take the inevitable lying down. He assumed the inside line when Verstappen got a run into Turn 17, making his team-mate take the long way around the hairpin. Ultimately, it was nothing more than a prorogation, and Verstappen got the run into the first turn of the 48th tour to recapture the lead.

On now-old tyres, Perez had no hope of staging a comeback, although hopefully asked if Verstappen had a problem seven laps from home. When told that the leader was simply managing his pace, having been concerned earlier in the race about the prospect of going on mediums, Perez accepted his fate and no longer attempted to fight a losing battle. Verstappen’s 1m29.708s on the penultimate lap was the killer blow, putting him 5.4s clear of Perez at the chequered flag to claim his 38th Formula 1 win.

"Obviously today Max deserved the victory because he was the strongest car out there" Sergio Perez

“When I went onto the hard, Max had a very strong pace, so we didn't manage to open a gap,” Perez rued after the race. “He simply came too close to us. We had a bit of a fight on track, which was quite clean - to the limit, but clean - and obviously putting the team in front of us. It was a great team result, but obviously today Max deserved the victory because he was the strongest car out there.”

Following his initial battles, Alonso enjoyed and endured a somewhat lonely race to third – a fourth podium finish of the season for himself and the Aston Martin team. He needed to make only one move for position, passing Sainz after their pitstops as the Ferrari driver’s earlier stop to ditch the medium tyres yielded an undercut. By the close of the race Alonso was a full 26.3s behind Verstappen and, although admitting to some frustration that he was not able to break into the higher echelons of the podium positions, was happy to reprise his role among the top three.

“It was a little bit of a lonely race,” he mused. “Nothing really to do in front of us with the Red Bulls, but behind us, not much pressure. At the end, P3, we’ll take this good result for us and fourth podium in five races. We only missed Baku by 0.8s, so I think it's a good moment.

“It is [frustrating not to be higher up]. We want to step one step higher on the podium, and hopefully eventually one day we'll have an opportunity into winning a race. At the moment, it didn't happen because Red Bull is better than us.”

Russell atoned for Mercedes’ difficult Saturday with a strong performance in the race, following Verstappen past Gasly a lap later to bring him into a battle with Sainz over fourth. The Madrid-born driver was once again hit with Ferrari’s struggles with tyre management, not entirely helped by the undercut effort on Alonso, and gave the team “zero flexibility” with how much it was able to push.

Sainz briefly headed Alonso courtesy of an undercut, but he had to manage his tyres and also dropped behind Russell

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

In the crossover between strategies Russell was allowed past by his team-mate, the alternate strategy-bound Lewis Hamilton, allowing the less experienced Mercedes driver to hasten his efforts to get ahead of Sainz. Five laps after the Mercs swapped places, Russell rattled off his move on Sainz and collected fourth place, giving him the momentum to clear off into the distance and focus on cementing a strong points haul for Mercedes.

“The battle with Carlos was really quite enjoyable because that was let's say, the fairest, good move,” Russell reviewed. “I needed quite a lot of commitment because this track's so dirty off-line. I wasn't too sure how much grip I would have had and if I could make it stick. Thanks to Lewis for letting me by in those situations and allowing me to get on with my race.”

The move may well have been moot anyway, as Sainz had collected a 5s penalty for a pitlane speeding violation. He locked up heavily on his way into the pitlane for his lap 18 stop, tripping the speed alarm to cede race time, but it ultimately cost no further positions as he was nearly 14s up the road from the sixth-placed Hamilton.

After starting 13th and spending much of the first half of the race sitting in Nico Hulkenberg’s mirrors, Hamilton’s hard-starting strategy yielded something of a slow-burn payoff. He only took ninth once Lance Stroll pitted from a long stint on hards on lap 42, but Hamilton had managed to preserve enough life in his tyres to make a series of passes in the last five laps – snatching seventh away from Gasly before making a move on Leclerc a lap later for sixth place.

While Hamilton enjoyed the bluster of the pre-race festivities at Miami, an arguably gaudy attempt to appeal to the US audience, the race was effectively the same old spectacle of a fight between the Red Bull cars. Whether the medium-hard or hard-medium strategy was the right way to go, it’s hard to fathom an outcome where Verstappen did not win either way. It was a tyre-management masterclass, something Verstappen rarely gets enough credit for, and he took a decisive victory against Perez in a hot and sweaty Miami encounter.

Imola, in aesthetic appeal and atmosphere, will be the complete opposite to the boisterous encounter in Miami. For those hoping for an outside contender to join the fray, they’ll be hoping the result ends up a little different too…

Will the Red Bull show finally be interrupted when F1 reconvenes in Imola?

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images