The Verstappen/Red Bull dynamic that shows the scale of Perez's F1 title task

Max Verstappen stands on the edge of his own piece of Red Bull history. He’s now level with Sebastian Vettel on 38 wins for the squad owned by the energy drinks giant and the heavy favourite to take the record for himself as soon as the next Formula 1 race at Imola.

Given the size of Red Bull’s advantage at the head of the pack right now, and with Verstappen’s current contract running to the end of 2028, at the rate he’s going he could put that record well out of sight for any successor in that period alone.

PLUS: How Verstappen won the Miami Grand Prix

Only one driver has a chance to stop him – and right now he’s sitting 33 wins back in the Red Bull victory stakes. Sergio Perez: double Baku winner, second in the standings with two wins to Verstappen’s three this year. Aiming for his first ever F1 title success.

But the manner of Verstappen’s victory in Miami last weekend demonstrated the scale of the task Perez faces. And it increased the gap between the team-mates from six to 14 points.

There were the little details the Dutchman got right. First, insisting with engineer Gianpiero Lambiase that starting on his only set of hard tyres and going to the mediums late in the race was the best course of action. This was despite Red Bull’s wider hierarchy overall feeling that it had a weaker chance of paying off.

Verstappen noted “a lap one puncture” was a risk, but there was actually a second threat because had there been an early safety car, lacking extra hards would’ve meant either stopping again for more mediums or charging on a first set after banking track position. Harder, but not impossible, to still win.

Red Bull's contra-strategy was implemented to allow Verstappen to come through the field from ninth without damaging his tyres

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The longer the race went on without interruption, the more gain Verstappen would feel if a safety car appeared – particularly after Perez’s lap 20 stop. But the overarching argument for starting on the hards was that there was a lower chance of abusing them coming through the pack, as Verstappen knew he would at an overtaking-friendly venue.

The mediums offered better grip for polesitter Perez – at risk of a first corner lunge from the evergreen Fernando Alonso. But even going with what Red Bull felt was the optimum strategy pre-race couldn’t overcome the other Verstappen factors at play last weekend.

There was the Dutchman’s relentlessness to hit back after his Baku defeats – a sense that he felt there was a wrong to be righted, which added an irrepressibleness to his charge from ninth.

More importantly, there was the patience Verstappen again displayed – having already risen from starting 15th in Jeddah – certain his RB19 had enough advantage over its rivals to mean he didn’t have to get stuck in aggressively early on (with Verstappen even losing a spot to Valtteri Bottas’s Turn 1 lunge).

The lack of early safety car played into the contra-strategy swinging to being the optimum. Had one appeared, it would’ve guaranteed no first-place battle, not that there was much of one anyway

The self-assurance boost provided to a driver by a brilliant car cannot be underestimated. Just look at how the reverse appears to be impacting Charles Leclerc so far this season.

Surely knowing that Ferrari has now definitely failed to match Red Bull as the best package for the start of this new ground-effect era, the Monegasque driver appears to have regressed to the worst moments of 2020 – where his success chances were suddenly minimised by a car deficiency (then the engine) and he overdrove as a result. This led to several big crashes.

Insight: 10 things we learned at the 2023 F1 Miami Grand Prix

Verstappen just doesn’t need to do that. Even in a five-race stretch where he hasn’t seemed completely at his brilliant best, he’s still leading the championship.

Perez wasn't helped by Red Bull's unintentional strategy miscalculation

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Another element that worked against Perez last weekend came, unintentionally, from within Red Bull itself. And this is that it miscalculated that the hard/medium approach would be the weaker race strategy.

Given how well the hards held up – almost no degradation was found across the field and it behaved consistently, even on heavy fuel, which the mediums didn’t do – starting and being on them for most of the race might’ve even minimised the impact of the race interruption that never came.

Red Bull has form in occasionally getting things wrong on tyres – most recently across the 2022 Brazil weekend. But this is mitigated by the fact Ferrari and Williams also employed the medium/hard tactic as the best, with the rest splitting their strategies or gambling in McLaren’s case with something else altogether.

The overnight rain ahead of the race reset conditions on what was a slippery, tricky track surface all weekend. And of course, the lack of early safety car played into the contra-strategy swinging to being the optimum. Had one appeared, it would’ve guaranteed no first-place battle, not that there was much of one anyway.

Verstappen had arrived in Miami admitting “I personally don't really enjoy street circuits”, which was a rather startling revelation. As there are ever more such track types on the F1 calendar these days (there’s an argument to be made that it’d be better for the planet to repurpose existing streets rather than building more purpose-built facilities) that will often leave him exposed.

Eventually, it will go against Verstappen in a consideration of his place amongst F1’s legends. Although perhaps, given he still regularly wins on street tracks (five triumphs and counting from that 38 total) this will in fact further enhance the current Red Bull design team’s merits in a similar non-driving discussion…

But, critically right now for both Verstappen and Perez, there are just three more real street tracks left on the 2023 schedule. And F1 is still yet to visit the truly high-speed venues Verstappen prefers, with car GPS data revealing in Miami that in the sweeping, rapid first sector around the Hard Rock Stadium, he held the advantage over Perez.

The pair are closely matched on street circuits, but GPS data suggests Verstappen will have the edge when it comes to high-speed tracks

Photo by: Michael Potts / Motorsport Images

Verstappen’s Miami race triumph felt like a marker being laid down. It certainly shifts the narrative away from Perez’s early-season momentum and piles pressure on the Mexican.

He still has chances – Verstappen failing to nail the first Q3 runs is becoming a bit of a poor habit – and Perez could yet prove the RB19 is indeed better suited to helping him elevate his performances away from the understeer precision requirements of street venues, as Red Bull thinks it will.

And he could race his team-mate harder. That’s certainly something F1 neutrals are crying out for right now in 2023.

But if Perez can’t win when Verstappen starts ninth and 1-2 finishes are ensured once the Red Bull pair are through early race chaos, that title aim is just not going to be realised.

Perez can still fight for the 2023 F1 title, but not if he can't convert poles to wins when his team-mate is coming from ninth

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images