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Red Bull's Helmut Marko admitted that Max Verstappen had no tools to fight the McLaren duo in Miami, as the driver got comprehensively beaten on Sunday (May 4). The Dutch driver had stunned everyone by securing pole position for the race, beating both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
The situation in the race was entirely different. After holding off Norris at the start of the race, Verstappen was soon caught up by Piastri. It was at this moment that it became clear that the Red Bull driver had no firepower to compete with the McLarens.
While Max Verstappen was trying to defend against Oscar Piastri, the Australian appeared to have the edge everywhere on the track. Once Piastri jumped Verstappen, the Red Bull driver put up a valiant fight against Lando Norris before letting him go when he started losing too much time while defending his position.
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As soon as the McLaren duo had free air, the two pulled away from the Dutch driver at almost a second per lap. By the time the checkered flag fell, Piastri and Norris were more than a minute ahead of the chasing field. Talking to Sky DE, Red Bull's Helmut Marko admitted that Max Verstappen just couldn't keep up with the leaders. Estimating the gap to be around 7-tenths, the Austrian said:
"Max showed his magic over one lap. But in the race we saw that on average we were seven-tenths to a second behind the McLarens, who were both going full out. Lando Norris had a bad start and steamed up, then we saw the real speed."
He added:
"McLaren was just superior. They are stronger on the straights and their tyre wear is also less. As I said, when you're seven-tenths to a second behind, that's a big difference."
Max Verstappen reflects on losing out in Miami
Max Verstappen had a disastrous race weekend in Miami, where his sprint was compromised by the team's misjudgment while releasing him from the stops. The race on Sunday was hampered because the Red Bull had nothing in it to fight with the McLaren. Looking back at the race, the driver said (via F1):
“Yesterday I said that I would try my very best and I gave it everything that I could, but it ended up being a struggle out there. I tried to put up a fight, but in the end it was impossible to keep them behind. We got a bit unlucky with the VSC, but of course that is part of racing and overall the pace wasn’t really there. We had nothing to lose so I was just trying to have a bit of fun on the track and it was cool to be out there racing."
He added:
"The race was unfortunately quite difficult for us in general and we ultimately lacked pace and struggled with the breaks. Every time that I tried to get close or push a bit more, my tyres would overheat a lot. It was really down to tyre management today and the track had quite high degradation, which is not our strong suit at the moment. We need a bit more performance to make sure we are more competitive, but we were quite far off today."
Max Verstappen has now fallen more than 30 points behind the championship leader, and he would be hoping that Red Bull's upgrades in Imola help close the gap to McLaren.
