Verstappen, coming soon

“I tried. I gave everything,” said ‘Checo’ Pérez after finishing 2nd in the 2023 F1 Miami GP. He started 1st and Verstappen started 9th. But yesterday, the blonde is an airplane and crushed everything with a devastating rhythm. In Baku, Pérez was able to stop Max very quickly, pushing the Dutchman. A week later, the Mexican was unable to repeat and was run over by the two-time world champion with his same car. “The result, in the end, was good for the team. Max deserved the win and he won.”, recognized as ‘Czech’. And it’s possible that it’s something that happened last weekend.

Max was more comfortable in his Red Bull from Friday, and also on Saturday until he made a mistake which condemned him to Q3 with the red flag caused by Leclerc. But by then, Verstappen had given ‘Checo’ enough indications to think that in Miami, despite leading his teammate by a long distance, he would struggle to win.

‘Checo’ wrote this on Saturday

‘Checo’ seemed to have warned him on Saturday, when he said he could not replicate the pace his teammate had shown all weekend.

“When I looked at the data and saw what Max could do, he just couldn’t do it and he was struggling. They’re not small differences, they’re pretty big.”, he said on Saturday, pointing to the positive set-up adjustments he applied to improve for ‘qualification’. The question remains whether these changes will help him for the race: “I felt really good in qualifying. I’m sure it will translate to race pace.”. And on Sunday, his pace was good, but Verstappen’s was higher.

Different strategies when there is danger

Besides his incredible form of the two-time champion in Miami, we must add that the performance of the average tire, according to Pérez, is better at the end of the race. ‘Checo’ started with medium rubber and finished with hard. It was good for Max to start in 9th because he had to risk the strategy: so he chose to start on the hard tire to put at the end of the appointment the standard tire with little fuel in the tank.

“I think the medium at first was really difficult, more than expected and I think that really compromised our speed.”He said ‘Czech’. “And then, in all honesty, I think Max also had a lot of speed on the hard tire and I think I have to study what’s going on because we just don’t have the speed.”finished

Verstappen, for his part, emphasized that the key was his performance on hard rubber. He did 46 full-speed laps on that tire very quickly. An atrocity. He did so despite signs of one of his tires being damaged. His times served him to chase Pérez after his stop, now with a new moderate tire against which ‘Checo’ could not defend himself. Verstappen gave a recital. Saw it coming.