Verstappen and Perez Finish 1-2, Verstappen’s Third Win of the Season

Dubai, 17 May 2023: Round 5 of the season, Miami Grand Prix took place at Miami International Autodrome. Max Verstappen of Oracle Red Bull Racing, supported by Honda as a Team Partner, won the race, with Sergio Perez finishing second.

Max Verstappen started Sunday’s race in ninth position but made all of his overtakes look easy as he stayed on hard tyres for 46 laps. Then, just two laps after coming into the pits, Verstappen moved past Pérez into first place and powered to his third win of the season – extending his championship lead to 14 points.

Pérez had started the race from pole position, however had to settle for second nevertheless the Mexican driver has enjoyed an impressive start to the season and sits second in the driver standings.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda started the race from P17 and was unlucky to finish out of the points in 11th, while Dutch team-mate Nyck de Vries finished in 18th place.

Max Verstappen

Oracle Red Bull Racing

‘Today was a good day, I stayed out of trouble at the beginning, and I had a smooth race, I picked the cars off one by one. I had a good stint on the hard tyres which I think was integral to the win today. I had a good battle with Checo towards the end there too. I of course had the advantage with the new tyres, but I think that’s what we like to see, we are free to race. Yesterday was a bit of a setback, today we kept it calm and clean, and winning the race from P9 was very satisfying.’

Sergio Perez

Oracle Red Bull Racing

‘Well done to Max, he had a tremendous race and deserved to win, I am really happy for him. It is not always nice when you lead the race and end up second, certainly I didn’t have the pace of Max and it is something we are going to analyse to see how we can do better. When I saw how strong Max was coming through the field and I was struggling a bit, I thought ‘this isn’t looking too good’. It would have been a gamble on strategy to start on the hard tyre from pole position. Of course, I wanted to win but I knew early on the race was looking tricky for us. This is one to learn from because clearly Max had the fastest pace. I think the performance Max showed today was not reachable for me, so I have to understand why. I think some was tyre related but equally, overall, he was the stronger driver today. There was maybe a bit more we could have done; it is a bit of a shame really but in general, on a tough weekend P2 is not a bad result. We will review the weekend. I want to get back strong for Imola and get back to our normal level.’

Yuki Tsunoda

Scuderia AlphaTauri

‘It was a good race, effort and recovery from the team and myself. I felt like I was able to extract the most out of the car. It’s a shame I couldn’t score any points, I gave it my all, but I am happy with my performance. It was a tough race mentally; there weren’t many breaks because there was always someone either in front of or behind me. I didn’t expect our race pace to be that strong, but it’s encouraging to see for the races to come. I felt confident with the brakes, which is why I was able to overtake quite a lot by sending it into the corner. We’ve got upgrades coming to Imola, so we hope they go well to allow us to score points consistently.’

Nyck De Vries

Scuderia AlphaTauri

After lap one, I was on the back foot. It was my mistake, I locked up and Norris and I touched. This compromised our first stint a little because there were a lot of vibrations on the right front which affected our pace. When you’re so behind and out of DRS range, you lose so much time on the straights that it’s tough to catch up. I was at the back, alone, so it naturally becomes easier when you’re not fighting as hard as in the middle of the pack when every moment counts. The weekend went a little up and down and started difficult; yesterday we had a better day and today was a shame that we lost so many positions on the first lap. We are bringing updates to Imola, so hopefully we can improve and go again.

– Ends –

Notes to the Editors:

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