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The inaugural Miami GP featured another interesting battle at the front of the grid between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen. There were also several other engaging battles raging throughout the field during the race. However, in Formula One there is one battle that takes precedence over all other battles. That is the teammate battle.
A driver's teammate is their first point of comparison on the grid, since they have the exact same machinery as them. Hence, it is no surprise that they can often make or break the driver's career. Let's take a look at where the drivers find themselves in their intrateam battles after the Miami GP.
2022 F1 Miami GP: Teammate rivalry
Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton vs George Russell (1-4)
Winner: George Russell
If we look at the weekend as a whole, Lewis was probably the better driver of the two. Russell messed up his qualifying while Lewis qualified in P5, directly behind the Ferraris and Red Bulls. Unfortunately for Hamilton, the tables turned in the latter half of the race.
Russell definitely benefited from pitting for a set of medium tires under the virtual safety car, which, then, allowed him to overtake Hamilton who was on much older hard tires. However, it's not hard to give the young Brit credit for suggesting that he stay out as long as possible.
This marks the fourth consecutive defeat for Lewis Hamilton against his teammate.
Red Bull
Max Verstappen vs Sergio Perez (5-0)
Winner: Max Verstappen
There is not much to say here. Sergio Perez did a solid job yet again in the race, but as always, he lacked those final few tenths to really challenge Max Verstappen.
Ferrari
Charles Leclerc vs Carlos Sainz (5-0)
Winner: Charles Leclerc
Carlos Sainz will be relatively pleased with his performance at the Miami GP as he picked up another podium position, which is a drastic improvement after the DNFs he's had in the previous races. Looking at the race, however, it was obvious that Sainz just did not belong in the same league as Leclerc and Verstappen. That's five races in a row for Leclerc at Ferrari.
McLaren
Lando Norris vs Daniel Ricciardo (5-0)
Winner: Lando Norris
The walls are starting to close in for Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren. The Australian has had a terrible start to the season. He has not been driving at Norris' level at any of the races and, once again, even though there was a slight problem in qualifying that made things difficult for Ricciardo, he never performed at a level close to his teammate's in the Miami GP.
That's 5-0 for Norris now at McLaren!
Alpine
Fernando Alonso vs Esteban Ocon (1-4)
Winner: Esteban Ocon
The Miami GP was a difficult one for Fernando Alonso who was in self-sabotage mode, wrecking his race with multiple penalties. His teammate Esteban Ocon, on the other hand, drove another race wherein he kept his nose clean and brought home maximum points for the team. Ocon is having a rather strong showing against the Spaniard this season.
Aston Martin
Sebastian Vettel/Nico Hulkenberg vs Lance Stroll (4-1)
Winner: Sebastian Vettel
Lance Stroll had the better qualifying and he was holding his own in the race, although Vettel did allude that he had more pace in the car. Regardless, if Mick Schumacher had not gone ahead with that lunge in Turn 1 towards the end of the race, Vettel would have scored points, and Stroll, once again, making a mistake at a crucial stage in the race would not have.
Stroll is a good driver when he keeps the mistakes to a minimum. Unfortunately for him, he hasn't gone through that maturity period in his career yet.
AlphaTauri
Pierre Gasly vs Yuki Tsunoda (4-1)
Winner: Pierre Gasly
Tsunoda was back to his old ways at the Miami GP. Both the AlphaTauri drivers reached Q3 on Saturday. Gasly (P7) ultimately outqualified his Japanese teammate in P9. In the race, Tsunoda fell down the order at an incomprehensible rate while Gasly was on course for scoring strong points before the Alonso incident.
Alfa Romeo
Valtteri Bottas vs Guanyu Zhou (5-0)
Winner: Valtteri Bottas
This has not been much of a battle as Zhou is not showing the kind of growth trajectory you would expect from a rookie and Bottas has been driving the car to its absolute limit. Sure unreliability issues plague Alfa Romeo more than any other team, but despite that, Bottas has been able to perform at a much higher level than his rookie teammate.
Williams
Alex Albon vs Nicholas Latifi (5-0)
Winner: Alex Albon
Williams is another team that did not have much of a "battle." Latifi's performance was, for the lack of a better word, forgettable. The Canadian driver was outqualified and outraced yet again by his teammate Alex Albon, and while Albon notched up yet another points finish, Latifi was somewhere at the back of the F1 grid, not making much progress.
Haas F1
Mick Schumacher vs Kevin Magnussen (2-3)
Winner: Mick Schumacher
Keeping the incident with Vettel aside for a moment, it was an impressive weekend for Mick Schumacher. It's often said that you can make a slow F1 driver fast, but you can't make a fast F1 driver crash less. Schumacher was the faster of the two Haas F1 drivers this weekend before he crashed and he needs to keep building on this momentum. The potential is surely there, but it's the application that is lacking at the moment from the young German driver.
We are looking forward to seeing which of the teammates emerge victorious after the Spanish Grand Prix in two weeks' time.
