Max Verstappen Finishes P2 in Miami Grand Prix

Ultimately today we were not quick enough; the safety car did not help us but we still had plenty of opportunities to win the race and unfortunately we lacked pace. When we took the car back to the garage, we also found that the floor was damaged and had a hole in which could have been picked up from hitting the cone. We also struggled with the tyres and balance of the car all weekend and I never felt too comfortable in the car. In the high speed I was understeering and we also struggled a lot with the grip with the tyres. It wasn’t our best weekend and it really shows that everything needs to work well to win races and it is not as easy as people might think. However, I am happy for Lando. Your first win is always emotional and he drove a great race: it was a long time coming and he deserved it today.

Overall it was quite a tricky race, especially at the start when I went down the inside and ended up narrowly avoiding Max. There was no grip at all, which we hadn’t expected and I ended up losing a place to Piastri and damaged my tyres for the first stint. Basically, everything was running a little too hot and I was struggling to get through the people ahead as we lacked pace today. We were struggling on both mediums throughout the race, we came back a little bit towards the end but I couldn’t get into the rhythm until late in the race. We knew Mclaren were very, very strong this weekend, and we just didn’t have the pace of the Mclaren today at the front. We made some changes overnight, that in hindsight were not in the right direction, so we’ll need to debrief from this weekend to come back for Imola.

Very happy, what a great job by the team! It’s been an incredible week in which we scored in both races. We kind of expected we would have a good performance here but the most important thing is that we achieved it. As a team, we stuck to our plan and didn’t make any mistakes today. As for me, overall, I’m happy with my driving even though I made a mistake at the start. I reset myself and kept going, and especially in the last stint where I was just driving by myself, I was pushing and able to achieve similar lap times to the cars in front. The team developed a great car and I appreciate them a lot. The amount of push from the factory is incredible and in the end, we were able to score well-deserved points. We were able to progress quickly from the start of the season, so I’m looking forward to the future. The next race in Imola is kind of another home race for me, so I hope we’ll be able to continue our rhythm and achieve a good result in front of our home crowd, especially people from the factory. Everyone is doing a fantastic job and we’ll definitely keep pushing! 

Entering the race you always have some optimism, but yesterday’s quali hurt, and unfortunately, I think was the shape of today’s race. We were stuck in traffic in the race and were simply not quick enough to come through the field. When we were surrounded by the other cars and fighting with them, we struggled a lot to use our pace compared to what we did yesterday in the Sprint with the clean air. Compared to other cars, I think that with our setup we were quite down on straight-line speed. I couldn’t do anything and was stuck behind them. We’ll definitely be looking into it in our debrief, but generally, we know that we have to qualify better, like I did on Friday, which has also been the mirror of yesterday’s Sprint. Taking the positives, the team leaves Miami very happy; I had a good Sprint-qualifying and Sprint in the previous days, and Yuki also got some points today. I’m also genuinely happy for Lando, big congratulations to him, he is a rival but also a friend. I know how talented he is and I knew it was just a matter of time for him to take his first win.