After going through a difficult weekend in Baku, Max Verstappen returned with a bang at the Miami GP last weekend. The outing didn’t go off to a great start for him, with an incident-riddled qualifying limiting him to a starting position of P9. However, he used the dominant RB19 to his advantage to charge up the field and win the race.
One of the disappointments in the race last Sunday was Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez. The Mexican driver, who is closer than ever to Verstappen in the standings, started the race on the pole and had a golden opportunity to win it and lead the championship standings for the first time ever in his career. However, he was so inferior to Verstappen in terms of pace that afternoon, that the Dutchman was able to take the lead of the race by the 20th lap.
Perez was losing five-tenths of a second to Verstappen in the first sector, which was a staggering gap. As per reputed F1 journalist Roberto Chinchero, even Christian Horner didn’t know how Verstappen was able to get such a huge advantage over Perez in the first sector. It even left Perez’s engineers baffled, and they were the ones who had to explain the lost time to him. Chinchero said in an interview–
“Max Verstappen is a cannibal. All it took him was one bad weekend. He arrived in Miami and he was already exploiting the track from FP1.”
Sergio Perez let a golden opportunity slip by
Perez has never led the world championship before and hasn’t been part of a title fight. Now driving the fastest car on the grid, the 33-year-old’s ambitions have grown, as he looks to give his teammate Verstappen a tough time.
In Miami, Perez started the race from P1, which was eight places ahead of Verstappen’s position on the grid. He had a golden opportunity to build a lead over him, but the Dutchman’s brilliance mixed with the Guadalajara-born driver’s inability to cope with it meant that missed out on his chance.
Perez followed Verstappen to finish P2, as Red Bull collectively built a comprehensive 122-point lead at the top of the standings, just five races into the season.
Max Verstappen on course to winning his third title?
Verstappen won his first world championship in 2021, edging out seven-time winner Lewis Hamilton. In the 2022 campaign, the 25-year-old followed it up with another win, although this time he won it comfortably with four-races to spare.
As things stand, Verstappen is the favorite to win the world championship in 2023, with no team coming close to matching Red Bull’s performance. Perez has put up a strong fight so far, winning two races out of the opening five rounds, but most people expect Verstappen to prevail.
