Ferrari wilts in Miami heat
In just two races Max Verstappen has more than
halved his championship deficit to Charles Leclerc, and
the pressure is now on Ferrari
to respond to Red Bull Racing’s (RBR) quickening car.
After such a difficult build
up to race day, Verstappen made victory at the Miami Grand Prix last Sunday (May 8) look easy.
Despite Ferrari’s first front-row lockout since 2019, Verstappen took the race into his hands with a drive of measured aggression befitting the new world champion.
He was lightning off the line from the grippy side of the grid to muscle alongside second-place Carlos Sainz and force him to concede. It was then a matter of hunting down Leclerc.
It took him just nine laps to get the job done. His car’s straight-line speed was more than enough to counter Ferrari’s rapidity through the corners, and by half distance he had an unassailable lead.
Only a late safety car threatened to undo his good work by closing the gap, but a faultless 10-lap defensive drive snuffed out Ferrari’s victory chances for good.
The divide between Verstappen and Leclerc is now just 19 points, down from 46 only two rounds ago, and all of
a sudden a comfortable early lead is looking vulnerable.
There’s a fascinating dynamic behind Ferrari and RBR
early this season. The cars have very different strengths –
the RB18 in straight lines, the
SF-75 around the corners – but
the teams also have opposing development plans.
RBR has brought upgrades
to just about every round this season, the most substantial
being weight-saving changes at the previous race in Imola. It’s why the team has crept from being a step behind to having the overall fastest car.
Ferrari instead is still rac
ing fundamentally the same machine it launched in preseason testing with the aim of bringing a major update to the next round in Spain.
It’s a strategy the Italian team thinks is more efficient in the cost-cap era and will allow it to be more targeted in its development. But it also carries its own risk: if the upgrade package doesn’t work, it’ll be solidly on the back foot and find it difficult to respond. The buffer it built up in the first three races will be easily wiped clean.
“We need to keep pushing,” Leclerc said. “Upgrades will be very important throughout the year, and I hope now that we can do a step up from next race onwards.”
There can be no championship battle without the development war in this new regulatory era, when lowhanging fruit is plentiful, and
it’s no exaggeration to say the title could be won or lost in the factories of Maranello and Milton Keynes.
Ferrari’s taken the first punch. It now needs to strike back.