The fifth race of the year, 183rd (1083) in total, held on Sunday, May 7, 2023 at the Miami International Circuit in Miami, was the triumph of original Red Bull driver and reigning world champion Max Verstappen.

He started from ninth position on the grid and finished first after 57 laps, of which the first 46 were completed on “hard” rubber tyres. On laps 48/57, he overtook lead teammate Sergio Pérez at the first corner after an elemental battle that didn’t last long.

For reference, let’s remember that in Saturday’s qualifying, the combination of Verstappen’s slight slip at Turns 5 and 6 and Leclerc’s failure at the same turn, causing a red flag and stopping Q3, determined the final positions in Sunday’s bracket.

The first is Perez, the second is Alonso and the third is Sent. The Dutchman is ninth, and the Monegasque is seventh. Hamilton fell out of the top ten for the first time since last year’s Imola. We, as viewers, look forward to Toto Wolff’s promise to rebuild the German team with a faster car at this year’s Imola.

Verstappen, for the first time in his eight-year career (debuting at the Australian Grand Prix in 2015, aged 17), overcame his anxious and aggressive self after qualifying and calmly stated that Sunday’s race should have finished at least second.

Two world titles, caring for Kelly Pick and the absolute trust that the people of Red Bull have in him seems to have taken away the aggression and rivalry that his father cultivated in him …

Verstappen behaves maturely. He recognizes his ability in the competitive context of a highly emotional sport where a racer can spend his entire life in the cockpit with little success and no win due to adverse circumstances, regardless of his driving skills.

Verstappen is very good and quite full. Choosing hard tires at the start and staying in it as long as possible brought him into the pit lane on lap 46 and placed him just behind Perez, so overtaking after two laps was an easy task for the drivers’ championship leader.

The mid-sized tires chosen by Pérez for the first leg of the trip (i.e. more weight) proved to be more responsive than his team expected. While hard (the tire perimeter is crossed out with a white stripe) was not only faster than predicted, but also practically unkillable.

Using his stiff tires to go 25 laps longer on the first stint, Verstappen’s speed after Pérez entered the pits was formidable, helped by the tire image that changed significantly overnight in his favor. Before the race, the combination of medium/hard tires seemed like the fastest way to go the distance. But in fact, cooler temperatures and overnight rain favored Verstappen’s choice of hard/medium.

The Mexican covered 64% of the distance on this fastest tyre, Verstappen 79%. That was enough to make up for the time the Dutchman had lost in traffic jams on the first 14 laps. Not only that, by the time Verstappen switched to the middle, he was no longer as prone to wear on his front right wheel (which suffers due to the morphology of this track), because by then the car was about 80 kg lighter than when Perez used it.

Match Description

There were no surprises or incidents at the start of the race, except for Sargent’s contact, which brought him into the pits for a nose change and left him in last place for the remainder of the race on a track 20 miles from his permanent home. Unfortunately, his compatriots were not given the opportunity to deify him. Magnussen, taking advantage of the early stoppage of Saturday’s qualifying tests, stood in fourth place on the grid, in the second row, and finally managed to get one point in tenth place at the finish line. Verstappen dropped one place at the start because of the hard tires and also because he is always very careful avoiding contact at the start, which is the most dangerous.

On lap 6/57, Verstappen overtakes Magnussen and Leclerc at the same time, taking advantage of the duel between them. In 9/57, he consistently overtakes Russell and Gazley. On lap 14/57 he overtakes Senta, and on the next Alonso. He is now second, beating Alonso’s prediction in their one-on-one pre-race talk that he would overtake him on lap 25. Because, of course, no one thought that Verstappen would fall below second place. With a score of 21/57, Pérez comes into the shift, finishing fourth on the track. In 23/57, the camera lens focuses on the wear on Verstappen’s front tires. He will last another 23 laps before entering the pits, really faster than the “fresh” Perez. At 29/57, Alonso overtakes Saint, and after three laps Hamilton chivalrously gives way to his teammate, who thanks him on the radio. At 37/57, Leclerc tries for the hundredth time to overtake Magnussen and he finally succeeds on the next lap, where Russell is ahead of Saint and secures fourth place. At 46/57, Verstappen comes off the bench and comes a few seconds behind Perez. After two laps, she takes first place, which she will hold until the end. Behind him, Perez finishes with a difference of five seconds, and Alonso with a difference of twenty seconds.

Verstappen is 14 points ahead of second-placed Perez. Alonso is third in the driver’s table, 30 points behind second. In manufacturers, Red Bull is ahead of the second Aston Martin by 122 points, and the third Mercedes is 6 points behind the second team. In two weeks the teams will be in Italy, at the Enzo and Dino Ferrari circuit in Imola, where the first Formula 1 race took place in 1980. There, on May 1, 1994, on this track, which was then called San Marino, they left Ayrton Senna and Ronald Ratzenberger.