Max Verstappen’s race in the name of perfection completes the reconstruction of a weekend that started in the worst way. The technical failures on Friday at the RB18 had prevented the Dutchman and his team from accumulating data and experience on an unknown track, but the team’s response since Saturday was perfectly supported by a fast, balanced and gentle car on the roads. roofing. The reigning world champion thus brings the victories this season to 3 to 2 in direct confrontation with Charles Leclerc. After the extraordinary duel that animated the last World Cup, it seemed statistically unlikely that we could see a challenge of the same intensity in the following year as well, moreover at the dawn of a new technical cycle. Verstappen, Leclerc and their respective teams are not at all disfiguring in terms of competition, with the hope that such a challenge can last as long as possible.
The Hard Rock Stadium race sees one of its crucial drivers in the start: Verstappen manages to pull off Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari outside of turn 1, immediately throwing himself in pursuit of the Monegasque and then overtaking within ten laps. The Red Bull victory matures especially in the opening stages, managing to express a better pace in the first stint than the Red, initially slowed down by the graining, with Leclerc who, however, later also spoke of degradation linked to overheating of the tires. A reversal of the precarious balance of power on Saturday in part linked to the conditions of the Miami track on Sunday which were radically different from qualifying. The rain that fell in the night and just before the start completely washed the track, removing the residual rubber in the trajectory, altering the level of grip and consequently the balance of the cars. To this must be added the asphalt temperatures on average 10 ° C lower than those recorded in qualifying, without neglecting the sustained wind with intensity between 10 and 15 km / h.
In such conditions of precarious grip, it was expected that Ferrari could prevail with a heavier set-up than Red Bull, a characteristic highlighted by the times in the high-speed corners of the first sector. The excellent pace expressed by Verstappen in the first stint therefore suggests that the reasons behind the better tire management of Red Bull, already emerged at Imola, go beyond the load level and lie in the mechanical set-up, in the stabilization of tire pressures and temperatures and in the driving style of the Dutchman. A superiority on the tires that also allows the Milton Keynes team to adopt more unloaded set-ups, accentuating the already excellent speed qualities of the RB18.
The gap between the two leaders has therefore grown to almost 8 seconds after the second stop, a deceptive figure of the actual performance gap. In fact, Leclerc lost about a second on the occasion of the long curve 17 on the twelfth lap, to which are added the 3 seconds lost in the excessively cautious pit exit lap, of which 8 tenths are attributable to the slowest pit stop. Once the hard tires were mounted and the track was progressively rubberizing, Leclerc was able to settle on the same times as Verstappen, keeping the gap constant and restoring the performance balance that emerged in qualifying. The entry of the Safety Car therefore allowed the Monegasque to attempt the lunge in the final, but Verstappen defended himself well, also taking advantage of the rapidity of the RB18.
In the balance sheet after five races, Red Bull thus demonstrates that it has achieved better growth in performance than Ferrari. F1-75 has remained virtually unchanged since the opening race, but not even the RB18 has been upset in aerodynamics, with the innovations limited to the endplates of the front wing (Australia) and the vortex generator on the bottom (Imola). Much more tangible for Red Bull was the weight reduction with the introduction of lighter components and a better understanding of the optimal set-up choices. Furthermore, as already repeated on several occasions, Milton Keynes’s single-seater benefits from an important straight-line superiority, which although in the arc of the flying lap it balances on the chronometer with the best driveability of the Red, in the race it proves to be a precious weapon in close duels, both in attack and in defense, as also seen in Florida. For its part, Ferrari can always consider unloading its aerodynamic guise, but such an operation would risk further accentuating the graining problems suffered at Imola and in the first part of the race in Miami. For the Scuderia di Maranello it will therefore be essential to capitalize on the package of updates coming to Barcelona, studied in its entirety since the beginning of the season with an overall vision, in contrast to the more fragmented and progressive development of Red Bull, a different strategy that only the time will judge.
Behind the two top teams, Mercedes manages to prevail over a center-group that in qualifying in Q1 saw 12 riders within 4 tenths of a second. Despite the positive result for the Brackley team, in relation to the performance of Imola and certainly not to the ambitions of the team, according to the team, the return of porpoising in FP3 is still unexplained, after this had not manifested itself for the whole day. on Fridays. The team tried to return to the same mechanical-aerodynamic configuration of the opening day, but in qualifying the car again suffered from the aerodynamic rebound, attributable to nothing other than the evolution of the track and the irregularities of the road surface. Immediately behind the Frecce d’Argento closes theAlfa Romeo by Bottas, also able to rebuild his weekend after losing almost the entire day of Friday due to the accident in FP1. The C42 appeared very fast especially in the slower corners, expressing a better pace than the Mercedes in the first stint of the race before having to surrender a few laps from the finish. In closing, deserving of an honorable mention is once again opportunistic Williamsagain in the points with Alex Albon, who with the entry of the Safety Car capitalized on the delayed stop.
The Circus is now awaited for a two-week break before returning to Europe. The appointment in Barcelona is already an important crossroads for the 2022 championship, both for the great representativeness of the Spanish track of the quality of the cars and for the arrival of updates for a large part of the starting fleet. Eyes on Spain therefore, but even more on the work that will be completed in the factories in the coming days.
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