Max Verstappen
Miami GP (1st)
This was the race that crushed Sergio Perez’s fleeting hopes of challenging for the title, when Verstappen atoned for a messy qualifying to scorch to victory from ninth on the grid. With nothing to lose, Red Bull put the reigning champion on the alternative strategy to start with hard tyres, while the top seven all opened on the mediums.
Once Verstappen got into his rhythm, he reeled off passes on Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Ocon, Kevin Magnussen, Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Pierre Gasly in the opening nine laps, then homed in on polesitter Perez and Fernando Alonso. Once Alonso and Carlos Sainz were dispatched, Verstappen went long on his tyres as Perez began to worry about his mediums graining. Verstappen maintained a consistently strong pace to ensure that, by the time both drivers had stopped, they were separated by 1.6 seconds.
On the soft er tyre, the Dutchman was on the charge and pushed Perez into defending into the end-of-back-straight Turn 17, which gave him the ammunition to make the final move into the first corner of lap 48. There was another hammerblow to come; Verstappen surged to the fastest lap of the race as he scampered away, 0.85s faster than anything Perez managed, to demonstrate the start of his 2023 dominance. JBL
