The Dutch anthem doesn’t play
The Miami Grand Prix has written a different story at the beginning of the season, during which Max Verstappen he almost always dominated with the Red Bull. After the pole in qualifying and the victory in the Sprint race, the three-time world champion was unable to complete another perfect weekend by crossing the finish line first also in the race on the street circuit, with the winner’s name being the first time in Formula 1 goes by the name of Lando Norris.
After Ferrari comes McLaren
Thus McLaren wins for the first time since 2021, a team other than Red Bull just as happened in March Australian Grand Prix with the Ferrari double. In that case it was a brake failure that excluded the Dutchman from the race, even forcing him to retire, but also in Miami Verstappen had to deal with other problems that relegated him to 2nd place.
The reasons for the lack of success
The team principal admitted it Christian Hornerwho in addition to underlining the misfortune of the safety car entering the track at the wrong time for Red Bull (which favored Norris’ pit stop and maintaining his lead) also indicated other problems that emerged especially after the mistake made by #1 at the entrance to the chicane, when he hit the cone: “First of all, congratulations to McLaren and Lando. They had a great race and it’s a deserved victory – he has declared – Max has been a while unfortunate to suffer a damage to the floor when he hit the bollard around the 21st lap; he was good at maintaining his position, but it was difficult for him to recover from there. Checo also had problems with the tyres, he recovered a little until the end but it was difficult to find the rhythm. We were also a bit unlucky with the safety car today, but these are the races, we still got the most points in the Drivers’ Championship and in the Constructors’ Championship, so we can take them with us to Europe and the fact that it was still a positive weekend.” In the press conference Verstappen did not give too much weight to the damage to the fund: “I did the same times before and after knocking down the pin, perhaps the bottom was already damaged before.”
