Red Bull’s Max Verstappen rued an “unlucky” 2025 Miami Grand Prix where he finished fourth.
Verstappen had started from pole position and punted McLaren’s Lando Norris wide at Turn 2 upon re-joining the track from a lock-up at the opening corner, but ultimately couldn’t keep eventual race winner – Oscar Piastri behind him as the Aussie forced him to outbrake himself at Turn 1 on Lap 14.
Norris followed through at Turn 11 on Lap 18 before Verstappen got jumped by Mercedes’ George Russell on Lap 30 for third during a Virtual Safety Car (VSC), which saw the Brit ultimately keep the reigning four-time champion at bay for the remainder of the race despite Verstappen’s allegation that Russell had sped during a third VSC.
Reflecting post-race, Verstappen simply felt that his car lacked the pace to match McLaren despite battling them hard until they eventually got past, whilst Russell’s luck with the VSC compounded his misery.
“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. The race was unfortunately quite difficult for us in general and we ultimately lacked pace and struggled with the breaks.”
Pirelli had gone a step softer in their tyre selection than last year whilst rain had left the track surface green with higher tyre degradation, which Verstappen believes exposed Red Bull’s weakness in terms of tyre performance in race trim.
“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.”