Of the many feats behind Max Verstappen, leader of the Formula 1 World Championship, the one experienced in the Miami race has to be on the podium of the most improbable. It didn’t matter to the Dutchman whether he started from ninth position, put on the hard tire at the start or that his biggest rival, his teammate Sergio Checo Pérez, had the pole. At a dizzying pace, he was able to advance every rival that came his way to star in one of the great comebacks in history. And he had nine laps left, when he met a Pérez who was betrayed by the hard tires after a great first part of the race. The World Cup leader is more of a leader, and when he looks back in a few years, he will remember Miami 2023 as one of the greatest displays of his career.
After the Red Bulls, unattainable for the rest, there always lived Fernando Alonso, who achieved his fourth podium of the season thanks to the fantastic pace of his Aston Martin and great management of the middle tire in the first part of the race. He waited until lap 25 to put on the hard ones, which was key to getting the lead on Carlos Sainz, with whom he was competing for the podium at the time. The race from Oviedo was relatively calm. He only had to extend the life of the middle wheels and when he had to go down in the mud, to overtake the Sainz track, he did it with great solvency. In the last laps, George Russell tried to get close to him with a reborn Mercedes, but Alonso kept his pace to keep him at bay. For his part, Carlos Sainz could only finish fifth after suffering a 5-second penalty for exceeding the speed limit of 80 km/h in the pits.
As if Verstappen’s task wasn’t complex enough, at the start Valtteri Bottas managed to snatch the position from him. One more to advance, the Dutchman must have thought. From that tenth position to second it took only fifteen of the 57 laps that the Grand Prix lasted. In the first two laps he overtook Ocon and Bottas. In the fourth he signed what is possibly the most spectacular advance of the year. He beat Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Kevin Magnussen (Haas) by one stroke. Next stop was George Russell, who he passed as if the Mercedes belonged in lesser competition.
By lap nine he was already fifth. In front, Sainz, Alonso and a Pérez who was not able to detach himself from the Asturian. Despite being submerged in all this traffic, the Dutchman was only five seconds behind his teammate at the time. Three laps later he was already threatening Carlos Sainz, whom he overtook on lap 14. Alonso wasn’t a problem either. Fifteen laps and a deficit of 3.7 seconds with Pérez. Not even in his wildest dreams.
A new battle was beginning, that of overcoming his companion. Fast lap after fast lap, Verstappen approached on hard tires, inexplicably they would last 46 laps. Faced with this superiority, the Mexican entered the pits to push hard and try to improve his times.
But something was wrong, he never managed to go faster than the World Championship leader, with much more worn wheels.
Verstappen extended his stop as much as he could and only came out a second pole behind Pérez, who he overtook on the next lap, in lap 56. The Mexican’s graining problems (wheel wear) prevented him to compete head-to-head this time.
At the back, Alonso experienced a test that he himself later described as lonely. “The car is incredible. The race has been quite lonely. We expected stronger opponents, but the Ferraris have fared worse than expected”, assured the Asturian, who looks to the future with great optimism. “At the beginning of the season a podium was incredible, but now we want something more. Still the Red Bulls are incredible, they are unbreakable. Maybe in Monaco or Barcelona we have a little more”, he said. The numbers of the Asturian are fantastic and now, therefore, he only has to take that step that will bring him closer to the, for now, dominators of the category.
Behind the Asturian, Mercedes and Ferrari appeared. The first ones improved their race performance compared to the classification. Especially Hamilton, who recovered seven positions. Russell also performed at a high level and was able to overtake Carlos Sainz, who at some point dreamed of the podium. The Madrid native went from more to less. When he was closer to Alonso, he tried to undercat, he made a mistake that cost him 5 seconds and from there he lost pace. To its low top speed added too much tire degradation. Leclerc, for his part, saved a seventh since he was in doubt at many times due to the push of Gasly’s Alpine.
For the trident of Italy, Monaco and Barcelona, ​​at the end of May, will all bring improvements. The goal for almost everyone is to reduce the lead with a Red Bull that continues to be light years ahead of the rest.
