GP Miami F1: 9th triumph in ‘Sprints’ for Max Verstappen

Once again Max Verstappen (Red Bull RB20/Honda) had no opponents and won his ninth Sprint race. He finished three seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc (Ferrari SF-24), who in turn left Sergio Pérez (Red Bull RB20 / Honda) two seconds behind.

Daniel Ricciardo (RB VCARB 01/Honda) had a great race and held off Carlos Sainz (Ferrari SF-24) until the end, securing good points for his team.

Oscar Piastri (McLaren MCL38/Mercedes) was sixth close to Sainz, with Nico Hülkenberg (Haas VF-24/Ferrari) in seventh, greatly helped by the work of his teammate, Kevin Magnussen (Haas VF-24/Ferrari), who As happened in Saudi Arabia, he kept the rest of the field behind him for a long time, even though he was penalized 25 seconds for exceeding the track limits with absolutely incredible maneuvers.

Clearly the Dane did not look ahead in this race, but only backwards, and he once again benefited his team despite a huge amount of penalty seconds. In F1 you shouldn’t be able to race like this. Yes, he fights, but not like Magnussen did.

Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes F1 W15), who worked hard to pass Magnussen, passed Yuki Tsunoda (RB VCARB 01/Honda) at the end, but it was unsuccessful, as Hamilton lost his place, as he was given a penalty for speeding in the pit lane. This added 20 seconds to his race time and dropped him to 16th place. The last point therefore goes to Tsunoda.

Pierre Gasly (Alpine A524/Renault) was ninth ahead of Logan Sargeant (Williams FW46/Mercedes), but here they only scored eight.

Race film

Norris was stopped in Turn 1, after suffering a touch. Stroll and Alonso touched, the Safety Car was ‘called’ on the first lap. For the first time in a sprint race the Safety Car was called.

The replays showed that there was a four-way fight in turn 1, Alonso touches Stroll, squeezed by Hamilton, and Stroll throws Norris out.

Hamilton saw a gap and went looking, but Stroll and Alonso would have collided anyway, despite Alonso complaining about the Mercedes driver’s radio.

After the Safety Car came out, Verstappen remained ahead and soon began to evade Leclerc, with Ricciardo and Perez for company.

Hulkenberg and Magnussen avoided chaos at the start and were both in the points, Hamilton attacked from ninth, Russell in P14, as he was hampered at that point in the start.

On lap 5 Verstappen opened more than a second between him and Leclerc, so he wasn’t worried about the DRS. Ricciardo also couldn’t get close enough to Leclerc, and had Perez to defend himself. On lap 6, Perez caught Ricciardo on the finishing straight at the end of the last lap, and the Australian now had Sainz for company.

On lap 9, Verstappen’s lead grew to 1.7s, Leclerc had Perez three seconds behind. Sainz was in Ricciardo’s single-seater escapes.

On lap 10, Kevin Magnussen cut a chicane under pressure from Hamilton. The ‘party’ between them began here.

On lap 11, Verstappen’s margin increased to two seconds, Perez was two behind Leclerc, with Riccardo another three seconds behind.

Magnussen was penalized 10 seconds for cutting the chicane, and Hamilton risked being penalized for exceeding the speed limit in the pits. He actually ended up being that. 20 seconds.

Magnussen remained in front of Hamilton, with Hulkenberg moving away despite having left the track and almost hitting Hamilton on re-entry. The Mercedes couldn’t pass the HAAS.

On lap 14, Verstappen maintained the same lead, 1.9s, two seconds, the same happening with the Ferrari driver’s margin for the second Red Bull.

The fight between Magnussen and Hamilton crossed all limits, with the HAAS driver seeing a black and white flag for repeatedly exceeding track limits.

Towards the end, Magnussen was again penalized due to track limits and the accumulation of penalties could be very harmful for the Dane. Hamilton ended up passing Magnussen, but ran out of time to get further ahead, after being ‘held up’ by the HAAS driver for a long time.

All in all, HAAS and RB score and continue to be the only ones in the back pack to score this year.

Up front, everything was the same, Carlos Sainz tried until the end to pass Ricciardo