Ferrari and McLaren Poised to End Red Bull's F1 Dominance
May 6 - Wearing a plaster on his nose after a wild party a weekend earlier, and freshly fined 25,000 euros for running across the track after a sprint race crash, Lando Norris on Sunday became Formula 1's newest race winner.
There's no doubt the 24-year-old was fortunate with the timing of the safety car, and La Gazzetta dello Sport even thinks the FIA "got it wrong" and broke its own rules for where the safety car entered the pack.
Max Verstappen, however, had no time for a round of 'what ifs'.
"If my mum had balls, she would be my dad," he smiled.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner thinks Verstappen also carried damage for hitting a bollard during the race, but the triple world champion wasn't so sure.
"When I heard what Lando's laptimes were, I knew it was going to be a difficult day," he said.
Indeed, although Oscar Piastri did not receive the full update in Miami, Norris was equipped with what McLaren CEO Zak Brown described as the 'B version" of McLaren's 2024 car.
"We have made a huge step forward," he claimed.
Verstappen agreed: "The McLaren was incredible today. They had an upgrade that obviously worked. But if a bad day is P2, I take it, right?"
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc completed the podium behind Norris and Verstappen, declaring afterwards: "Hopefully we can bring the upgrades very quickly and catch up."
Team boss Frederic Vasseur confirmed that Ferrari's upgrade is scheduled for the next race at Imola.
"We're taking them out of their comfort zone more and more often," the Ferrari boss said. "And then a safety car is enough for McLaren to win.
"That was different last year, when anything could happen and Red Bull would still win."
However, Red Bull will also have a car upgrade in the luggage in Imola.
"We have a bit of work to do from our side," Verstappen admits. "It definitely wasn't our strongest weekend in terms of race pace, but we'll analyse it all and try to come back stronger from it."
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SC picking up a second-place driver instead of at-the-time race leader was definitely an error, but Lando's gap to Max was already a little more than the average pit loss time relative to drivers on track under neutralized conditions (9 seconds for Miami Autodrome), & even if he'd rejoined behind, he would've likely still won, given his tyre advantage was the same either way with Max having an additional disadvantage from the floor damage.
However, concluding that Ferrari & McLaren are poised to end Red Bull Racing's or rather Max's superiority is premature at this point.
Most likely, normal service will resume in Imola.
Well lets see, Max won the Sprint race and finished 2nd in the GP in a car he was never really happy with and over the course of the weekend he gained a point on Lando and several on everyone else, as a matter of fact he could set out the next 2 races and only be 19 or 14 points down only to Perez or Leclerc respectively if they won those 2 races and also set the fastest lap doing it. Man what a horrible weekend. Poor Max and RB have fell apart and their reign of terror is over. I mean come on a 1st and a 2nd in two races....what a chump and a dismal weekend. Give me a break!
It was very apparent Max was not happy with his car this weekend, with floor damage it made it worse. Pretty impressive coming in second. Let’s be serious, Lando drove a great race, however, with all things being equal, the results may have been different. The SC was to MC favor but that’s racing, timing and some luck goes the spoils. Before people start hanging black crepe for the end of RB, let’s see what develops in future races. People are so funny! It was a great race in spite of everything. Congrats to Lando!