The former Formula One World Champion Max Verstappen took the chequered flag for Red Bull ahead of the two Ferrari’s.
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The very first Miami Grand Prix held on sunday, may 8th witnessed Championship leader Charles Leclerc led away from pole and began gradually building a lead over Verstappen, who had jumped the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz at the start. But as the stint went on Verstappen emerged as the faster of the two, and passed Leclerc to take the lead. The former Formula One World Champion Max Verstappen took the chequered flag for Red Bull ahead of the two Ferrari’s.
While the Scuderia leads both championships and the constructors’ their advantage has shrunk to six points, and Charles Leclerc who finished P2 in Miami is just 19 points clear of Verstappen in the drivers’ standings. Binotto discussed his team’s performance after the race, which saw Carlos Sainz finish third after holding off a weakened Sergio Perez. Binotto said “We can’t be completely happy with today’s race because, although the F1-75 was competitive, our rivals were a few tenths per lap quicker than us. ”
He added “If you consider how many points we are taking home from here, we can’t be too disappointed, given that we are leading both championships, but it’s clear we now need to respond. We are keen to get the job done and there are still a lot of races to go.”
Red Bull, who brought enhancements to Imola while Ferrari delivered a minor upgrade package to Miami, has pulled ahead in the performance stakes, according to Binotto, but the balance might shift again given the extended season and development fight. Binotto exclaimed “It’s true that Red Bull improved their car, improved it since the very start of the season. If I looked at the last two races, maybe they got a couple of tenths per lap faster to us. It’s no doubt that in order to keep the pace we will need to develop ourselves with new upgrades.”
Read more: Team principal Mattia Binotto ‘shocked’ by Scuderia’s perfect start to 2022
Binotta hinted that teams are expected to bring more significant upgrades coming into the Spanish Grand Prix (May 20-22) and the Italian team would probably not be an exception. He further explained that with a budget cap at some stage Red Bull will stop developing. It is not a surprise that they may have a package in Spain, which will be important for them.“I hope because there is a budget cap that at some stage Red Bull will stop developing, otherwise I would not understand how they can do that but let’s see in the next races. It could be at least our turn to try to develop as much as we can, the car by introducing upgrades, and I think it’s not a surprise that we may have a package in Barcelona, which will be important for us.
“As usual, I hope the package we are introducing is working as expected and in that case, it can be a good boost in order to try and catch up the current gap we’ve got to the Red Bull.”
