Smiles for Max despite second place
The ‘curse’ of the poleman continues in Miami: for the third time in as many editions the driver who started in pole position did not win. Neither Max Verstappen he escaped the cabal. The three-time world champion was the virtual leader of the race, but the Safety Car that came onto the track due to contact between Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant allowed Lando Norris, who had not yet stopped, to make the pit stop and remained leader of the race.
McLaren had a great pace in Miami and Norris demonstrated it by losing his great friend after defending himself in Turn-1 on the restart. Verstappen had a good pace on the medium tyre, not transcendental in light of what one might think, but enough to maintain control of the situation. The hard compound, however, didn’t work on the Red Bull.
“Sometimes the Safety Car favors you and other times it doesn’t, but that’s racing – explained Verstappen – overall we were struggling a bit too much in terms of pace. On the medium tyres, we weren’t bad, but on the hard tyres, I didn’t have any grip at all. I suffered a lot in both the low and high speed sections, I couldn’t find a good balance with the car. The hard tires didn’t work for us, we don’t know why and we need to understand. Obviously I’m happy for Lando, he’s a dear friend of mine and I am very happy that the day I get beat it’s Lando who does it“.
#Verstappen #happy #Norris #beats #happy