ESPN.- Max Verstappen put together a weekend full of setbacks to win the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Miami, the first in history, in a battle that lasted the entire race with Charles Leclerc, but was defined in large part at the start Mexican Sergio Pérez, Max’s teammate at Red Bull, finished in fourth place, although he came close to stealing the last place on the podium from Carlos Sainz.
The Dutchman from Red Bull has won the three GP’s he has started and also the Sprint at Imola, while he left empty-handed in two retirements. Race that ends, race that ends.
He added 26 points for the victory and the fastest lap and with it he reached 85 units. He remains behind Leclerc’s 104, the championship leader.
Checo Pérez remains third in the standings with 66 points.
It is the 23rd win of ‘Mad Max’ career in Formula 1, which tied him with his father-in-law Nelson Piquet and Nico Rosberg for 12th place all time.
His podium was number 63 to remain alone with the tenth place in the history of F1.
George Russell finished fifth ahead of his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.
THE RACE
At the start Max Verstappen overtook Carlos Sainz, while Leclerc and Pérez remained first and fourth, respectively.
On lap 9, Verstapppen attacked Leclerc, who seemed to have lost his pace and at the end of the pit straight he passed him to seize first place.
Earlier, the first dropout had been Chinese Alfa Romeo driver Ghaunyu Zhou.
Yuki Tusunoda started the parade through the pits entering on lap 11, while Kevin Magnussen went to Haas for a tire change.
Checo Pérez remained a second and a half behind Sainz, while Verstappen opened the lead to 3.5 over Leclerc. On lap 17, Checo Pérez entered the DRS zone behind Sainz, but then commented on the radio that he was losing engine power, but his engineer told him that everything was fine.
“I’m losing power, it doesn’t look good”, “I’m losing 4 seconds on the straight”, Pérez commented on the radio with some desperation.
Fault 5.0 follows, failure of the hybrid system of the power unit.
Lewis Hamilton pitted on lap 22, while Leclerc stopped for hard tires two laps later to replace the medium ones, in an attempt to undercut. He returned to the track in fourth place, 27 seconds behind Verstappen and 8.6 seconds behind Pérez.
On lap 26, Verstapppen pitted hard and came back in second place 7.3sec behind Sainz, who momentarily inherited the lead. The stoppage left him more than 8 seconds ahead of Leclerc, with Pérez in the middle.
In la 78, both Sainz and Pérez entered the pits. The Spaniard had a very long stop of 5.4 seconds, almost twice as long as expected, which left the Mexican 5.4 seconds behind the Ferrari when they rejoined.
Three riders who started on hard tires opted to stay on the track as long as possible: George Russell, Esteban Ocon and Nicholas Latifi.
On lap 41 there was a very violent crash of Lando Norris in his McLaren, when Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri struggled to get the car on track and the cars had contact. It was Gasly’s left front tire with Norris’s right rear, who slammed into the barrier furiously. The safety car came out.
George Russell took advantage of that moment to enter the pits and leave in seventh position.
Checo Pérez also entered the pits by means without losing place in an excellent arrest.
Lewis Hamilton was asked on the radio by his engineer if he wanted to pit: “Don’t ask me, man, don’t leave it to me.”
“OK, let’s go inside.”
Esteban Ocon managed a “nothing to lose” strategy, after starting from the pits in last place. On hard tires he went 41 laps on them and then rode soft in 10th place.
The green flag waved when negotiating lap 46, 11 from the end, with the expectation of seeing if Pérez would attack Sainz, who had hard 18-lap tires.
