Gentlemen, hats off: Max Verstappen is superior to any difficulty. It is true that the Dutchman has the best single-seater around, but the two-time world champion has literally demolished the hopes of Sergio Perez who, starting from pole position, could have hoped to put his teammate in difficulty, relegated to ninth position on the starting grid.
The Dutchman only missed the decisive moment in Q3, but otherwise dominated the weekend of the Miami GP. Starting with the hard tyres, Max tried his hand at overtaking on the track which easily took him to second place.
On lap 20, with Checo’s stop, he took the lead, dictating the pace with tires that lasted 45 laps: Verstappen after a slow pit stop (3″1) ended up behind his teammate, but with yellow tires it didn’t take long to eat the Mexican who tried to stay on the hook.Impossible operation: Max Verstappen wins in Florida and breaks the balance of successes with Sergio, collecting his third victory of the season which is the 38th of his career.
Red Bull collects another one-two and makes a void on the competition that isn’t there: Max shoots a 1’29″708 on the penultimate lap which also earns him the fastest lap, bringing his lead in the world championship to 14 points The Red Bull mechanics ran to the nets to celebrate the extraordinary success of the orange, while the motivations of the tough Perez were being dismantled, who had to take note of the indisputable superiority of his “captain”.
In Miami, the fifth round of the world championship out of 23 races, the 2023 title has already been decided. The Red Bulls have a separate race: a phenomenal Fernando Alonso has brought Aston Martin back to the third step of the podium for the fourth time this season which confirms the Silverstone team as second force in the Constructors. The Spaniard was perfect, but the 26 seconds gap from the RB19s confirms that there is very little to hope for.
Mercedes, with no modifications pending the revised and corrected car that will arrive at Imola, optimized their efforts and George Russell took an excellent fourth place even if half a minute behind. The black arrow defended itself more in the race pace than in the flying lap and even Lewis Hamilton who started from 13th recovered to a consistent sixth place.
Between the two W14s is Carlos Sainz: the Spaniard defended himself with his claws with a Ferrari that didn’t work. The Madrilenian also got a 5-second penalty for entering the pitlane that was a bit too Garibaldian, which didn’t affect the Spanish rider’s standings. If the Scuderia hoped to have good indications from the changes brought to Florida on the SF-23, it returns home empty-handed. Not only has there not been a step forward, but the red has slipped back to being only fourth force . A bad sign confirmed by Charles Leclerc’s seventh place.
The Monegasque paid for the incident in qualifying, but the “prince” didn’t have the pace: for a long time he had to deal with Kevin Magnussen’s Haas, who finished tenth at the checkered flag, bringing a precious little point to the team of Gunther Steiner. Ea VF-23 has the same engine as the red, a sign that the problems do not come from the power unit, but from the car.
Finally an honorable day has arrived for the Alpine both in the points with Pierre Gasly eighth and Esteban Ocon ninth: it took a rebuke from the CEO, Laurent Rossi, to put things in order after too many points thrown away.
Yuki Tsunoda with the AlphaTauri remained out of the points, but preceded a too submissive Lance Stroll with the second Aston Martin. After a brilliant start to the race, Valtteri Bottas matched his usual performance and slipped to 13th place with the Alfa better in flying lap than in race pace.
The big disappointment was the McLaren relegated to the rear both with Lando Norris, forced into the pits on lap 1 after being rear-ended by Nyck De Vries, but Oscar Piastri also remained behind, so he preceded only Logan Sargeant, very disappointing with his Williams in front of his audience.
