Max Verstappen won in the footsteps of Niki Lauda

Max Verstappen straightened things out in the Red Bull stable duel: The Formula 1 world champion won the Miami Grand Prix ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez after starting from ninth place on the grid. This made him the fifth pilot to achieve this feat. Niki Lauda last made it to Dijno in 1984.

Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso was third, more than 26 seconds behind. Mercedes man George Russell was fourth. Verstappen extended his World Championship lead again, the Dutch brought 14 points between themselves and Perez.

Verstappen catches up

After a start without major incidents, polesitter Perez tried to get away from Alonso. However, this only worked to a manageable extent. Rather, Verstappen was the fastest man in the field with hard tires and, as expected, made up position after position. He even overtook Leclerc and Kevin Magnussen’s Haas in one go. On lap 14, Verstappen had caught up with second-placed Alonso and shook the Spaniard off a lap later.

The World Championship leader also had the harder set of tires than Perez, who had to swap his medium tires earlier in the pits. After lap 20, the Mexican changed the tires and Verstappen took the lead. However, the Dutchman didn’t manage to extend his lead over Perez to such an extent that he would remain in the lead after a pit stop.

The two drove practically identical lap times before Perez eased off a bit from the 40th lap. After Verstappen’s tire swap on lap 45, he came back onto the track behind the Mexican, but overtook his rival after two laps and rushed to victory. “I had a clean race,” said Verstappen after his 38th Grand Prix triumph and third win this year.