We’re there or abouts and if nothing happens at the front then we’re fighting for the last points which are leftover, and we got them this weekend after a very good qualifying.” Said boss Guenther Steiner: “We scored points again, three times out of five this year and that’s good, but it’s a tough crowd out there. It was a strong weekend, bringing something good to the car and getting a point at home.” I think the pace was good, but we had a little bit more degradation than the rest of the field. “I don’t think it was an easy race to get points in because all the big teams finished up there and P10 is more or less the best we could’ve hoped for in terms of the pace we had. “I was dreaming of a little more than one point but still, it’s what we came here to do – to get points and finish in the top 10,” said Magnussen. Magnussen put up a spirited display before eventually ceding position to Charles Leclerc before being helpless to prevent Lewis Hamilton and Esteban Ocon-on the alternative tire strategy-to also move ahead. Magnussen started from fourth place following an excellent display in qualifying and held his own toward the front of the midfield for large swathes of the race. Haas driver Kevin Magnussen executed a fine weekend to be one of the few to go home with a reward, rounding out the top 10 in a race in which all 20 drivers finished. You get from one set to the other, and the car is completely in a different window.”įerrari remains only fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. This is just very difficult also as a driver to gain the confidence and to adapt your driving. It’s always an unknown, whether the car is going to react well, whether the tires are going to be in the right window. “We are going from one (tire) compound to the other, and we never know what’s going to happen on the new compound. “It’s not even from corner to corner, it’s just in the same corner I can have a huge oversteer balance and then a huge understeer balance. “What we are lacking is consistency on the car,” said Leclerc. Leclerc echoed Sainz’s downbeat analysis of Ferrari’s SF-23. Sainz explained that “as soon as you do one good fast lap the next lap you are three-tenths slower with the tires.” I had to stay under the limit for the rest of the race if I wanted to make it to the end.” By pushing the (hard) tires for three or four laps for the undercut it meant for some reason right now with our car we have zero flexibility with how much we can push and not push. “I was a bit surprised with how much we struggled with the hard tires after a very strong stint on the mediums. Leclerc had a scrappy weekend as he crashed in practice, went off in the same place in qualifying, and was a modest seventh in the race. Rudy Carezzevoli // Getty Images No Podium for Ferrariįerrari showed glimpses of promise in Azerbaijan, especially in the hands of Charles Leclerc, but in Miami it was off the pace.Ĭarlos Sainz was third on the grid but dropped behind the charging Verstappen and Mercedes’ George Russell, meaning Ferrari was only the fourth-best car in race trim. “It was a big win, to win in America, the second time here, to get our fifth victory, our fourth 1-2 of the year, particularly from starting first and ninth on the grid, was a huge performance,” he said.įerrari’s Carlos Sainz finished in the points for Ferrari. Red Bull boss Christian Horner was understandably delighted by the outcome. Luckily that all worked out today and you can move forward and win the race.” But then again it’s all about the performance of the car, how you feel in the car and the performance you can extract. If you have a terrible lap then you make it even harder for yourself, but luckily it didn’t work out too bad just making sure we didn’t have any damage on the car. “But it’s always difficult to know what is going to happen. “Yesterday I said to myself ‘minimum P2’ because I think that is where we should finish anyway with the car we have,” said Verstappen. Red Bull’s advantage in the Constructors’ Championship is already 122 points. Red Bull’s domination was such that Verstappen’s advantage over the next-best Red Bull car was 26 seconds, marking the fourth time in five races that the gap has been at least 20 seconds. Perez attempted to put up a defense, but Verstappen went around the outside of turn 1 to claim the lead and secure the victory.Ĭombined with the bonus point for fastest lap it puts Verstappen 14 points clear. Verstappen emerged from his pit stop just 1.5 seconds behind Perez, but on significantly fresher and softer tires it was not a contest. Perez came into the pits first, switching to hards, before Verstappen eventually made his lone stop on lap 45 of 57 to put on mediums. Max Verstappen left Miami with a 14-point lead in the Formula 1 standings.
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