Max Verstappen took a decisive victory in Miami ahead of a late surge from Charles Leclerc. Carlos Sainz took both Ferraris to the podium after Sergio Perez just missed out on silverware.
There was pre-race drama for Aston Martin as both drivers were not able to take to the grid. They had cooled their fuel too significantly and would have incurred a penalty from the FIA. They started from the pitlane.
Clean Start for the leaders
Sainz suffered on the start and lost 2nd to Verstappen. Hamilton also started poorly dropping to 8th. Leclerc kept the lead, but Verstappen kept close through the twisty track.
Schumacher and Magnussen both climbed 4 places and Haas were now just outside the points.
As the DRS was activated, the only initial move was Hamilton getting past Alonso for 7th.
Hamilton was reporting damage after lap 1 contact with Alonso. This seemed to be accurate as the Mercedes was shown locking up numerous times around the track. Despite this, he took back 6th from Gasly.
Schumacher was in a battle with Tsunoda for 10th and just managed to squeeze past through turn 1 on lap 7.
An unfortunate message came through to Zhou on the same lap, the Chinese driver would have to retire.
On lap 8, Verstappen snuck back into Leclerc’s DRS territory. The Ferrari seemed to be chewing up the front tyres. Verstappen launched an offensive and managed a DRS overtake on lap 9. Leclerc remained close, but the Red Bull’s superior straight line speed aided Verstappen’s defense.
On lap 12, Leclerc suffered a huge lock up and dropped a second to Verstappen. Ferrari were really starting to suffer.
Cars take to the pits
Tsunoda was the first to pit on lap 12. He was on the medium tyre and was slightly earlier than expected. Just behind was Russell, whose hard tyres finally seemed to come to life. He was now hassling Ricciardo for 12th. It didn’t take long for him to get past.
Stroll’s recovery drive led him to an immensely impressive overtake on compatriot Latifi. However, it was only for 13th place, 4 positions behind his original grid slot.
Norris had an unfortunately slow stop and this led to him dropping behind the Aston Martins. This was compounded further by a terrible sector 3.
Perez had a small issue for a lap, but it cost the Mexican driver 4 seconds, dropping him far behind Sainz in 3rd.
Up front, Verstappen was stretching his advantage, setting fastest laps on his 23rd tour.
Hamilton stopped on lap 23, just coming out ahead of Ricciardo in 7th. He was tailing Russell by 6 seconds, but Russell was still playing the long game on the hard compound tyres.
Leclerc was the first of the front runners to pit on lap 25, but the stop was a lethargic 3.2s. Verstappen stopped on lap 27, a superb 2.4s stop, meaning the Red Bull mantained his advantage.
Sainz came into the pits just infront of Perez, but another slow stop from Ferrari gave the Mexican a 2s gift.
Mid-Race Mayhem
Hamilton’s tyres were only 6 laps old, but he was majorly struggling with overheating. Replays showed an uncharacteristic error as the Mercedes driver locked up into a tight chicane.
Alonso took an opportunistic move on Gasly during lap 36, but he locked up and made slight contact. Gasly majorly lost out and dropped from 9th to 11th.
Out of nowhere, cameras cut to a McLaren spinning with only 3 tires down the track. Norris collided with an unaware Gasly and was lucky not to hit the barrier. Gasly would later retire.
Perez and Russell both ducked into the pits. Perez came out 4th on a better compound and with far less laps, while Russell came out one place behind Hamilton in a similar situation.
Verstappen was leading the pack, ahead of Leclerc, Sainz and Perez.
The safety car came in on lap 46 and the grid remained in formation. However, Perez and Leclerc were looking fast.
Climax in the sunshine state
Bottas went wide in the penultimate corner, letting both Mercedes past. Following this, Hamilton had to defend hard from Russell who eventually took 5th from the 7-time champion. However, the overtake was taken off the track. Russell gave the pace back, but re-overtook a few laps later.
Meanwhile, Leclerc was revitalised from the Safety car period and was all over the back of Verstappen. Just behind, Perez was hounding the other Ferrari of Sainz. The Mexican attempted a move, but locked up, giving the position back to Sainz.
Schumacher was running strong for a first points finish, but he collided with father-figure Vettel and ruined both car’s opportunities to score points.
Leclerc had been incredibly close to retaking the lead, but unfortunately he was not able to mount a significant challenge. Verstappen took his 3rd race win of the season and was able to close the gap in the title race. Sainz somehow managed to fend off Perez and took 3rd. Russell’s impressive run of top 5 finishes continued, just ahead of Hamilton. Bottas took an understated 7th ahead of the Alpine duo, Ocon then Alonso. Albon took another points finish with 10th, an impressive showing for the Williams driver.
Full race results:
- Verstappen
- Leclerc +3.786
- Sainz +8.229
- Perez +10.638
- Russell +18.582
- Hamilton +21.368
- Bottas +25.073
- Ocon +28.386
- Alonso +32.128
- Albon +32.365
- Ricciardo +35.902
- Stroll +37.026
- Tsunoda +40.146
- Latifi +49.936
- Schumacher +73.306
- Magnussen RET
- Vettel RET
- Gasly RET
- Norris RET
- Zhou RET
After such a strong start from Ferrai, Red Bull seem to be back on track for the championship. The scarlet team still have the advantage, but the boys in blue are coming back strong. The next race is the Spanish GP in two weeks time.
Featured Image Credit: @F1 Official Twitter
