Red Bull “surprised” how long Max Verstappen was able to hold off McLarens in Miami
Max Verstappen’s early-race performance in Miami has been lauded by his team boss.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says he was “surprised” to see Max Verstappen hold off the faster McLaren Formula 1 cars of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris for so long in the Miami Grand Prix.
Polesitter Verstappen retained the lead at the start of the race despite a lock-up at Turn 1 and a clash with Norris that ended with Norris running off the track and dropping to sixth position.
The Dutchman went on to build a buffer of over one second and it wasn’t until lap 14 of 57 that he lost the lead to Piastri's McLaren.
Verstappen managed to hold off Norris for another five laps and would have likely finished on the podium had Mercedes’ George Russell not benefited from pitting under a virtual safety car.
Horner praised the performance of Red Bull’s star driver Verstappen on a day the McLaren was so dominant that it won the race by 37s.
However, he also admitted that battling so fiercely with Piastri and Norris likely compromised his finishing position, corroborating Norris’ comment that he “ruined his race”.
“We knew going into this race, it was going to be very, very hard to beat them and I was actually surprised that Max was able to hold them back for circa 14 laps,” said Horner.
“I thought it was a very brave display, arguably that maybe hurt our own race because you're fighting hard, your tyres are getting hot.
“But you're leading the grand prix, you've got to go for it and I thought he did an outstanding job to keep Oscar behind as long as he did and then Lando.”
McLaren’s dominance stemmed from its superior ability to manage thermal tyre degradation, a key deciding factor in Sunday’s race at Miami International Autodrome.
While Verstappen put together a rapid lap to claim pole position in qualifying, he finished nearly 40 seconds down the road on Sunday in fourth as the RB21 failed to be any match to the dominant MCL39s.
His deficit to Russell, who finished an anonymous third thanks to Mercedes’ strategic choice, was 2.3s
Asked if the race was a case of damage limitation, Verstappen said: “I had nothing to lose so I just tried to have a bit of fun out there as well at the same time.
“I said yesterday that I would try to do my very best and we did that today, but unfortunately [we] just didn’t have the pace.
“We were overheating a lot on the tyres, so it was just quite a bit of a struggle out there, and then of course we got a bit unlucky with the VSC as well, but that’s racing as well.”
While McLaren’s advantage in Miami was the biggest seen so far, Verstappen suggested that the gap at the front will continue to ebb and flow depending upon circuit characteristics.
“It has been already their strength for a while, so sometimes on a track where the deg is a bit lower of course you might not see it as much, but on a track like this with thermal degradation, it’s of course bigger,” he said.
