The late danger that could have cost Verstappen Miami GP victory

It really couldn’t have ended any other way. The top three finishers in Formula 1’s first Miami Grand Prix wearing Pirelli-branded NFL helmets atop the gigantic podium. The Miami Dolphin’s aqua-coloured-structure only dwarfed by the Hard Rock Stadium’s total vastness behind.

Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc had gone wheel-to-wheel yet again in 2022. The Red Bull driver emerged victorious in a race that was re-enlivened only by a late-race safety car following a dramatic crash in the pack, as Ferrari’s challenge was lost for the second event in a row with struggles on softer Pirellis.

In qualifying, however, Ferrari had got the softs up to temperature nicely on the slippery track surface, and Leclerc had been able to keep them in the performance window best to aid his run to a third pole of the season so far. When the lights went out in the race, he made the perfect launch to steam towards Turn 1 in the lead. And that’s pretty much as good as it got for Ferrari last Sunday.

From alongside Leclerc on the front row, Carlos Sainz reacted at the same moment as his team-mate, but lost a few car lengths as he was forced to start away from the gripped-up racing line. Sainz still accelerated well enough but Verstappen, who had gained off the line but not enough to be properly alongside as they braked for the first corner, was about to make a gamble that paid off big time.

Heading into the race, the drivers had been concerned about having to take a variety of lines into the first corner, following their complaints about the state of the track off-line across the weekend.

The issue centred on the new granite-and-lime-rock surface shedding some of the small stones imbued within it, leaving the tyres skating and sliding when taken off the racing line, and the drivers with unpredictable handling there. But the pre-race track sweeping had been thorough enough to remove this loose surface from the fast right-hander – Fernando Alonso spotting this when stopped there for a long time on the drivers’ parade and deciding an around-the-outside move would be viable.

Verstappen made a bold move on Sainz around the outside of Turn 1 at the start to set up his pursuit of Leclerc

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

But Verstappen, who “didn’t even do a start” in the three practice outings such was his reliability dramas in the two Friday sessions, didn’t know what to expect. Still, he realised he’d have momentum to try and attack Sainz, and “saw the opportunity to go around the outside in Turn 1”.

“So, I tried and luckily,” he continued, “it worked.”

The move was bold. It now got Verstappen fully alongside Sainz, but critically on the racing line for the soon-following Turn 2 left-hand kink. Here, Verstappen flexed his RB18’s figurative muscles, leaving Sainz with no option but to cede the place. And so the world champion, armed with superior top speed compared to the Ferraris, set off in pursuit of his title rival having removed a potential rolling roadblock.

Leclerc’s lead only ever reached a maximum of 1.4s – at the end of lap five. By lap eight, a band of dark rubber had appeared on the leader’s front-right tyre

At the end of lap one of 57, Leclerc’s advantage was 0.85s. He pushed on to escape Verstappen’s DRS threat during the opening two tours – successfully managing to establish a lead of over the critical one-second mark.

The race quickly boiled down to a two-horse contest. Sainz and the chasing Sergio Perez, while still within touching distance of the lead throughout the first stint, never factored into the battle up front.

Leclerc knew he was vulnerable to attack through any of the Miami International Autodrome’s three DRS zones, such was the remaining potency of Red Bull’s low-drag package, even with the reprofiled rear wing Ferrari had brought to this event in a bid to make the F1-75 more competitive on the straights.

So, he charged through the first sector each time in the opening phase – regularly pulling up to 0.4s clear of Verstappen and lighting up the timing screens with a series of purple first sectors.

But in the other two thirds of the lap, Verstappen brought his top speed advantage to bear. And so, Leclerc’s lead only ever reached a maximum of 1.4s – at the end of lap five after the Ferrari had set a then fastest lap of 1m33.963s, Leclerc going into a bracket neither driver had been able to reach by that stage.

Leclerc managed to open up a gap in the first sector, but was always reeled in by Verstappen over the remainder of the lap

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

But it came at a cost. From there, Verstappen began to eat into Leclerc’s lead and by lap eight a band of dark rubber had appeared on the leader’s front-right tyre – the stressed wheel around an anti-clockwise course such as this. Verstappen had barely been informed that his rival was struggling through a graining phase on the mediums all the frontrunners had started on when he was suddenly within the critical DRS detection gap.

At the end of lap eight, Leclerc slid exiting the Turn 17 hairpin, which the drivers considered to be the last real corner on the 3.36-mile track. Verstappen, his mediums showing little sign of trouble – Red Bull impressed by how he kept his right-front rubber in good shape in the first stint – closed right up to the Ferrari’s rear. He was perfectly positioned to strike, which he inevitably did at the first opportunity: the pitstraight run towards Turn 1.

Leclerc jostled, but made the early call to stay on the racing line down the short run along the grid hatchings, parallel to the stadium’s longest sides. That gifted Verstappen the inside line for the overtaking point, but it was a calculated decision by the Ferrari driver.

“The experience I had from FP1, FP2, FP3, [was that] inside there it was a disaster – the grip on Friday and Saturday,” Leclerc explained when Autosport asked in the post-race press conference why he didn’t fight Verstappen’s move harder.

“I did not expect Max to have that much grip. But, actually, I think it was much better for the race. Looking back, you can always do something better. But I thought that, at that moment, it was the right thing to stay on the racing line and try to optimise the braking point. Which I did, but it didn't work out.”

Despite his worn mediums, which improved once he’d had got through the graining phase (so much so that he and the rest of the leaders were able extend their opening stints to make the race a one-stopper rather than the expected two), Leclerc gave everything he had to try and stay with Verstappen.

He continued to charge through the opening sector, where Ferrari’s high and medium-speed corner advantage with an overall higher downforce package counted significantly. But he couldn’t stay within DRS range and then fell to 2.6s behind by the end of lap 12 – after he’d lost a full second locking his right front and sliding deep at Turn 17.

With Leclerc complaining that his car had become “so difficult to drive” after 11 further tours, during which Verstappen had edged clear by 0.174s each time, Ferrari brought him in to take the hards.

As his tyres grained, Leclerc was powerless to prevent Verstappen surging ahead

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Here, Leclerc lost another 0.8s with a sluggish right-rear change, and such was Verstappen’s lead by this stage that Red Bull opted not to respond for another two laps. When the Dutchman did arrive for his service, he too was put onto the white-walled rubber and the gap between the pair once Verstappen had completed his out-lap was 7.6s.

In this middle phase, a deja vu experience played out. Again, Leclerc would post regular purple first sectors and gain several tenths on Verstappen, before the Red Bull hit back around the rest of the lap, just as it had in the opening stages.

They exchanged fastest laps five times through the next 15 laps – taking that benchmark down into the 1m32s bracket. And the result was that Verstappen’s lead did not really grow.

Norris, overtaking to Gasly’s left but unaware of the Frenchman’s issue, said he was “just unlucky” as he came by – their contact ripping the Briton’s right-rear wheel off and putting him out after a wild spin between the walls

“Once we did the pitstop and put the hard tyre on, we were actually very closely matched in pace,” said Verstappen later. “It was very crucial to get that gap [on the mediums at the end of the first stint].”

It appeared as if the stalemate would play out to the finish, Red Bull only concerned by a build-up of cloud that threatened rain that never arrived. But that all changed, very quickly.

On lap 39, Alonso, who had gained four places thanks to his wry Turn 1 calculations and a fortunate whack against Lewis Hamilton, had wrecked his race. He hit Pierre Gasly in a move Alonso later called "very optimistic" and "my mistake" because he "braked too late" at the first corner.

This had a big knock-on effect elsewhere, as AlphaTauri left Gasly out to assess how badly his AT03 was damaged. But although its aerodynamic load readings were acceptable, Gasly was touring slowly, hobbled with a steering issue that left him unable to turn sufficiently.

He had to use the runoff in Turns 6 and 8 on lap 40, then after rejoining from the latter area opposite the track’s much mocked ‘fake marina’, disaster struck. In fact, McLaren’s Lando Norris, then running 14th, struck Gasly’s right-front corner – the incident one of sheer bad luck.

Contact with Gasly - whose car was wounded after a hit from Alonso - ended Norris's race and brought out the safety car

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Gasly was clearly turning right and with his car not responding as it normally would as he ran through a shallow (and therefore not designated as a corner) right-hand kink at the start of Miami’s meandering fast run to the Turn 11 90-degree left-hander.

Norris, overtaking to Gasly’s left but unaware of the Frenchman’s issue, said he was “just unlucky” as he came by – their contact ripping the Briton’s right-rear wheel off and putting him out after a wild spin between the walls.

The virtual safety car was activated, but this eventually became a full safety car. That upgrade from race control happened when Verstappen – his lead about to be wiped out completely – had already passed the pit entry.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner later suggested that Ferrari “left us off the hook” by not taking “a free stop” here. But that wasn’t possible for Leclerc, as he too had just passed the pitlane entry point when the safety car was called and so had no chance of taking on fresh rubber.

Sainz did have such an opportunity, but Ferrari opted not to take it. The Spaniard had lost three seconds with a slow right-front change at his hard tyre stop and after that had been running comfortably in front of Perez.

The gap between them had ballooned in the first stint, artificially inflated thanks to the Mexican driver encountering a dramatic loss of power on lap 19. The problem was a faulty sensor, which Red Bull issued instructions to reset, but at the cost of “10km/h [6mph] down on the straights”, per Perez, for the rest of the encounter. That explains why Sainz could pull away early in his second stint.

When the safety car appeared, Red Bull chose to bring in Perez for a second stop, to switch back to the medium tyre. This, Sainz later explained, was not an option for Ferrari.

“I knew Checo was going to pit because he had a new medium,” Sainz said post-race. The Ferrari drivers had come into the GP with just one set of new mediums and two new hards, which were poor for the tyre warm-up needed at restarts.

The safety car's arrival neutralised Verstappen's advantage

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

“Our alternative was a used soft or a new hard, which for me both of them were not good enough for 10/12 laps. So, we were better off staying out on our used hard.”

The race was neutralised for five laps while Norris’s wrecked car was removed from the track, with Verstappen leading the Ferrari duo and wondering how his team-mate’s sudden advantage would impact the remaining proceedings.

These began with the restart at the start of lap 47, which Verstappen aced to run clear of Leclerc once again. But, just as had been the case before the safety car period, the pair were very evenly matched. Actually, the Ferrari driver was back in the ascendency as the pair began a 10-tour showdown to the finish.

Leclerc was once again gaining in the opening sector, but Verstappen’s lead was in serious danger at another point of the track – the much-disparaged, very tight and blind chicane at the end of the second sector.

With DRS still off in accordance with F1’s regular restart rules, Leclerc had no chance to get alongside Verstappen – who still had his immense top speed to come to his rescue – despite being very close out Turn 8 at the end of the first sector

Here, Verstappen was “struggling a lot with cold tyres hitting the kerbs” and was losing fractions to Leclerc each time. This reversed a general trend from the race, which surprised Ferrari – that Verstappen had been faster through the track’s slow-speed corners.

These are the type of turns that have suited the red cars more at 2022’s opening races, but Leclerc revealed he was “struggling quite a bit more than them in the slow speed corners” throughout last Sunday. The lowest temperatures since FP1 were a likely factor, caused by a shower one-hour before the start. These also impacted Verstappen’s ability to switch his hard tyres back on following the restart. And the problem was so acute that Leclerc felt there was “one very good opportunity on the second lap after the safety car” to mount an attack.

That was the race’s 48th tour but, with DRS still off in accordance with F1’s regular restart rules, he had no chance to get alongside Verstappen – who still had his immense top speed to come to his rescue – despite being very close out Turn 8 at the end of the first sector.

Leclerc threatened Verstappen as they attempted to get their hard tyres fired up once more, but without DRS couldn't make a pass stick

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

In the six laps that followed the restart, Verstappen’s lead never rose above 0.9s. He felt he made “a few mistakes” through the chicane as he struggled with his cold rubber, but slowly the temperatures rose and he “had a little bit more pace”.

In rather similar circumstances to Imola last time out, Leclerc had a chicane kerbs moment on lap 52 – clattering over the Turn 14 apex violently, just as he’d been even closer behind Verstappen, looking to the inside of Turn 11 (as he’d also done two tours before).

Unlike in Italy, however, he remained pointing in the right direction after his kerbstrike. Leclerc later acknowledged that it was “a big hit” but insisted “I managed it quite well, so it didn't have any consequence on the opportunity for overtaking”.

“On that particular lap,” he added, “I overdid it. But I actually didn't lose that much compared to my previous lap. The lap before it was Max who took it quite hard and helped me to get close.”

But Leclerc never got another chance thereafter. By lap 54 and with three tours remaining, Verstappen had recovered enough pace to pull out a 1.3s gap and to seal the race’s fastest lap bonus point with a 1m31.361s. He sailed on serenely to the finish, 3.8s in front – Leclerc abandoning his ferocious chase, content with his fourth podium from five races so far in 2022.

“It's a very good comeback,” Verstappen said of his 23rd F1 career victory, coming after he’d missed a chunk of FP1 with his car overheating and basically all of FP2 with a precautionary gearbox change and then a subsequent hydraulic issue.

“We’ll have to analyse the end of the run on the mediums, which was the weak point of this race,” concluded Leclerc, who also lost the Imola sprint in similar circumstances on the same C3 compound.

Leclerc again came off second-best against Verstappen

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Sainz completed the podium but to do so had had to see off Perez’s late advances. The first of these came at the restart, where Perez got a better run through the final corners. Sainz, though, showed him to the outside line for Turn 1 and maintained the position. That move did, however, immediately remove any chance of Sainz picking up a tow and later DRS from Leclerc’s car ahead.

Perez chased him for four laps, then made his second attempt to secure a third straight podium, which would have matched his longest F1 streak.

The critical point again came into the first corner on lap 52, but this time Perez lunged from much further back. He steamed down the inside of Sainz, who made a late move to defend – swinging across right towards Perez and the pair so nearly made contact. The Red Bull’s left-front locked and Perez slid deep and wide.

“My tyres were overheating,” he explained. “So, as soon as I had a little opportunity, I went for it. But it was too dirty off-line.”

The podium celebration scenes rather exceeded a 100% level of… decorum. But the scenes were rather apt in summing up what was a massive party in Miami

The botched move meant Sainz could re-establish a 1.4s advantage and he stayed ahead unruffled to the finish. There, he scored a result he felt he “needed” – mainly to “complete a race distance, to get the body back to shape” after going over a month without running a full grand prix. As a result of that absence, and neck pain he sustained in his FP2 crash at the chicane, Sainz “wasn't feeling 100%”.

“It’s a combination of those two things,” he explained. “I was paying the price a bit and at some stages of the race I couldn't push 100%.”

The podium celebration scenes rather exceeded a 100% level of… decorum. But the scenes were rather apt in summing up what was a massive party in Miami. It was one Verstappen was keen to join. “I need a drink!” he said on the cooldown lap.

He may equally have been referring to his urgent desire to rehydrate after a race that matched the much-missed event in Malaysia for heat and sweat-loss. But this is America’s party city and Verstappen had very much earned his liquid reward.

Verstappen celebrates a victory that puts him 19 points behind Leclerc

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images