Max Verstappen Wins Miami Grand Prix in Red Bull Runaway

The only question at Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix, as usual, was not if Red Bull would win the race. It was which Red Bull driver would win the race.

Sergio Pérez started from pole position and led for a while. Then Max Verstappen. Then Pérez again. Then, finally, Verstappen. This has become, regular watchers of Formula 1 will tell you, routine nowadays.

The winner this week? Verstappen, who slipped past Pérez after a late pit stop and sped away to claim his third victory of the season. (Pérez has the other two; Red Bull has yet to lose in five races this year.)

Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin was third, again, his fourth such finish in five starts. Formula 1 is best in class at a lot of things; surprising people, it seems, is no longer among them.

Verstappen’s victory, a satisfying one after a rare slip in qualifying left him far back on the starting grid, will carry beyond Sunday, as it allowed him to extend his lead over Pérez in the season points race. That edge, which had shrunk to 6 points, is now a more comfortable 14.

But the victory also re-established Verstappen as the best driver on Formula 1’s best team, and the betting favorite to win the next time out, and the time after that, and the time after that.

“I made it hard on myself,” Verstappen had said before the race, alluding to a rare error in qualifying that led to his starting ninth on the 20-driver grid. “But we’re going to have a good day.”

He was right. But for Red Bull, they are all good days this year.

Where the Race Turned

Laps 20 through 40. Pérez started fast and led for about 20 laps before pitting to get himself onto the same hard tires as Verstappen, who had torn through the field behind him to climb into second place. As soon as Pérez surrendered the lead to him, though, Verstappen sprinted away: At one point he had opened a lead of nearly 20 seconds on the rest of the field.

Of course, Verstappen still had to pit, too. But his lead had grown so large by then that when he emerged from the pit lane, on the 46th of 57 laps, he did so with fresh tires and a clear line on Pérez, only a few yards ahead on the track around the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium. It took Verstappen less than two laps to sprint around his teammate, and that was that.

“Well done, Max,” Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner, told Verstappen on the radio soon after he crossed the finish line. “That was a mighty middle stint.”

The Race in Photos

Best Days, Ranked

1. Red Bull. Always, though Verstappen will go to bed marginally happier than Pérez.

2. Fernando Alonso. Have you ever seen anyone so happy to finish third almost every time out?

3. Mercedes. George Russell finished fourth and Lewis Hamilton, who started 13th, placed sixth. Mercedes continues to make improvements, and both Russell and Hamilton grumbled on the radio at times on Sunday. But given where the team was — the team principal Toto Wolff had snarled at reporters this week that his own team’s car was “a nasty piece of work” — Sunday was a good day.

Red Bull’s results this season:

Bahrain: Verstappen P1, Perez P2

Saudi Arabia: Perez P1, Verstappen P2

Australia: Verstappen P1, Perez P5

Azerbaijan: Perez P1, Verstappen P2

Miami: Verstappen P1, Perez P2

Drivers’ Championship Standings

Red Bull’s only race at this point is against itself: