The Miami Sprint was marked by a tense duel between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. A confusing battle that left the Dutchman particularly annoyed.
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The Miami Sprint offered a new episode of the rivalry between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. The two drivers found themselves directly battling in the middle of the pack, in a sequence made confusing by an off-track overtake by the Dutchman.
After taking the advantage over Hamilton outside the track limits, Verstappen had to give the position back to the Ferrari. But the situation became complicated when Hamilton did not immediately regain the position, prolonging an already messy exchange between the two drivers.
Verstappen annoyed by a useless loss of time
After the finish, Max Verstappen did not hide his frustration with this poorly managed sequence, believing that both drivers had lost valuable time.
“I had to let him pass, but he doesn’t pass, so we lose four seconds because he stays behind me. That’s where we lost our time” he laments.
Verstappen does not really understand how the situation could have gotten stuck like that: “I don’t know what else I could have done at that moment!”
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A decent pace despite the confusion
Despite this frustrating episode, the Dutchman took away some positive elements from his race. Once in clean air, he found a more competitive pace.
“Once in clean air, the car wasn’t too bad. I was catching a Mercedes. The pace was decent, even though there are still many things to improve on our side” he explained.
He nevertheless highlighted persistent problems with his car, especially in slow corners: “At low speed, the car bounces a lot, which makes me lose quite a bit of grip.”
A Red Bull still improvable
Beyond the duel with Hamilton, Verstappen also pointed out a difficult start and a battery problem at the beginning of the race, which made his Sprint even harder.
“The start wasn’t good again… and then I had no battery deployment, so it was much more complicated” he specified.
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