Things were very different in Miami from Baku a week earlier, in the very delicate balance between the two drivers – Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez – who now have the only two cars capable of winning in Formula 1. The two Red Bull RB19.

Baku, like Monaco – where Perez won both – is one of the circuits that suits the Mexican. The way he manages any understeer tendencies his car may have and is able to adjust it to his own level despite those tendencies while having a barrier and no escape zone on corner exit made Perez Verstappen slightly superior in Monaco as well as last year and in Baku this one Year.

Monaco and Baku are full of slow corners that amplify even the slightest car understeer that Verstappen so loathes. The Dutchman urgently needs a razor-sharp nose, which he didn’t have in Baku. At least to the absolute extent that he wanted it. Thus, in pursuit of Perez, the Mexican – with the RB19 at his feet – managed to find the pace to avoid being threatened by the Dutchman.

But the Miami street course is a different case altogether. It is not a classic circuit surrounded by barriers. It has emergency exits – which means you don’t have to pay dearly for controlled understeer – and it also, unlike Baku and Monaco, has a lot fewer slow corners and a lot more fast ones.

In short, it’s a track that looks more like a normal track and is therefore much more in the spirit of Max Verstappen. It also has a lot of fast corners where the Red Bull RB19’s colossal aerodynamics understandably performs much better.

With these kinds of specs, Verstappen has the upper hand over Perez, firmly. Possibly this is also largely due to the lift generated by the nose, which clearly benefits its stability – lift not generated in slow turns where traction is left more to mechanical means (suspension) and favors the source that this differentiation drives von Pérez.

The differences between two drivers of this level are vanishingly small, but they each affect the settings puzzle of each three-day race for each of them. We saw how it affected Verstappen in Baku and Perez in Miami. And vice versa.

And Verstappen may be the one rare super talent that Perez never was, but the fact that in this delicate balance the Mexican sometimes emerges victorious – when even a tiny parameter doesn’t even apply to Verstappen – and beats the Dutchman shows the high level by Perez himself.

On the other hand, when Verstappen finds perfection in settings – which happens at most championship circuits – then he ascends to another ‘planet’ of performance that Perez rarely encounters. This was already clear during the tests on Friday in Miami.

Verstappen was consistently almost half a second faster per lap than Perez, while averaging 0.4 inches per lap faster in the race sim with medium tires. Everything went like clockwork for the Dutchman, while Perez said on Friday: “I didn’t have the best tests. I locked a wheel in the last corner and didn’t ride that well. If I can manage to feel more confident [στο μονοθέσιο] It will be fine”.

All was not well, as it turned out, and the Mexican never quite solved the mystery of the Miami arrangements. The Mexican clinched pole position when Verstappen’s pressure on his first fast lap of Q3 brought the RB19’s time-consuming destabilization into the fast Turns 5-7, forcing him to abandon the lap.

Max had hoped to correct his mistake in his second attempt at the end of qualifying but that was never to happen due to Charles Leclerc’s crash which brought out the red flags and there was no time to restart the process.

So Perez seemed to have a rare opportunity to win what until then had been considered a Verstappen competition. He would start first, the Dutchman eight places further down. But as it turned out the next day, the perfection Verstappen had found in the RB19’s setup – and that Perez didn’t have – would still give the Dutchman the win.

How Verstappen won from 9th place

As a result, Max Verstappen in 9th on the grid joined Perez’s 1st, knowing full well that his RB19 in his hands would be significantly faster than the other in Perez’s hands. But was that enough to make up for the disadvantage of the Dutchman losing time on the early laps by passing the cars in front of him?

In addition, Perez would theoretically have been faster in the early laps on the medium tire he started on than Verstappen, who chose to start on the hard tyre. Because the first was, always theoretically, a lap half a second faster than the second.

Despite his setup and lag in pace, for the two reasons above (Verstappen traffic – faster tire), Perez theoretically looked like he could move at a pace that would put up a relatively good gap over Verstappen in the early laps.

But that didn’t happen. On lap 15, when Verstappen passed Alonso and moved into second place, he was just 3.7 seconds behind Perez. How did this happen; The reason was the unexpected change in tire behavior from Saturday to Sunday.

Part of this change was weather related. Sunday’s asphalt temperature dropped to 36°C from 49°C on Saturday, while overnight rain washed away in Miami between Saturday and Sunday any rubber that had been deposited in the previous two days.

These changes altered the behavior of the tires as follows: the average tire was no longer 0.5 inches per lap faster, but only 0.2 inches at first and then faster. Pirelli F1 Director Mario Isola explained that something particularly rare happened: “When we did the math, the total hard rubber wear that accounts for fuel reduction was 0.003”. Stay»!

At the same time – although the temperature was lower – they wore out much earlier than expected on the rougher (without rubber coating) asphalt. And their wear only got worse with the heavy fuel load in the early laps.

The tire balance change was both a disadvantage for Perez and an advantage for Verstappen. In fact, the Dutchman sometimes set faster laps than the Mexican, taking advantage of the 0.3 inches on lap given by DRS and the utter inability of the drivers he passed to offer the slightest resistance to the Milton Keynes spacecraft.

At the same time, Perez tried to protect his unexpectedly vulnerable center tire, particularly the front right tire that was showing excessive wear. “In the first 10 laps [ο Πέρεζ] He just managed his tires by controlling the pace.explained RBR director Christian Horner at the end. “And he was a bit nervous about the right front tyre. When I see that the other teams are a little worn down, I think he drove well to protect it.

“He started pushing after the first 10 laps to build a gap. In hindsight, with the perspective we have now, he could have pushed harder until his pit stop as the performance of the middle tire developed well as we saw with Fernando [Αλόνσο} που πήγε αρκετά μακριά με αυτό (σ.σ.: μέχρι τον 25ο γύρο)», κατέληξε ο Χόρνερ, εξηγώντας ότι μετά το αρχικό του πρώτο στάδιο φθοράς η μέση γόμα εμφάνισε περισσότερη ανθεκτικότητα.

Ο Πέρεζ είπε ότι η μέση γόμα ήταν χειρότερη του αναμενόμενου: «Από πολύ νωρίς είδαμε ότι ήταν πολύ ευαίσθητη, οπότε χρειάστηκε να προστατεύσω τα ελαστικά πολύ για να φτάσω περίπου στον 15ο γύρο. Ήταν πολύ δύσκολο να πιέσω αυτά τα ελαστικά. Βασικά, ήταν δύσκολο να προστατεύσω όλη τη δεξιά πλευρά τους. Και ναι, έβλεπα ότι ο Μαξ πλησίαζε, και κατάλαβα ότι ο αγώνας θα ήταν δύσκολος».

Ο Πέρεζ μπήκε στον 20ο γύρο για να απαλλαχθεί από τη μέση γόμα, και να βάλει κι εκείνος τη σκληρή. Αλλά ακόμα και με τα φρέσκα του ελαστικά ο Πέρεζ δεν μπορούσε να κινηθεί πολύ ταχύτερα από τον Φερστάπεν, που είχε σκληρά ελαστικά ηλικίας συν 20 γύρων. Τέτοια ήταν η ανθεκτικότητα και η σταθερότητα απόδοσης της γόμας με το λευκό περίγραμμα.

Ο Φερστάπεν ήταν πρωτοπόρος, αλλά αντί να χάνει γύρο με το γύρο τη διαφορά από τον Πέρεζ με τα παλαιότερα ελαστικά του, προσπαθούσε ακόμα και να τη διευρύνει για να καλυφθεί από το πιτ-στοπ του. Όταν τελικά το έκανε, στον 45ο από τους 57 γύρους, ως αποτέλεσμα, επέστρεψε στην πίστα μόλις 1,5 δευτερόλεπτο πίσω από τον Πέρεζ.

Τώρα, πια, η μέση γόμα δεν παρουσίαζε τα ίδια προβλήματα με την αρχή του αγώνα. Τα περίπου 80 λιγότερα λίτρα καυσίμου είναι μια τεραστίων διαστάσεων παράμετρος σε ένα μονοθέσιο, και στον τρόπο που διαχειρίζεται τα ελαστικά του. Οπότε, μαζί και με τη βοήθεια του DRS ήταν τυπική διαδικασία να περάσει τον Πέρεζ και να κατακτήσει μια νίκη που είχε αρχίσει να διαφαίνεται τουλάχιστον 20 γύρους νωρίτερα.

«Δεν ξέρω πόσο διαφορετικά θα ήταν αν είχε την ίδια στρατηγική με μένα, αλλά είχε αναμφίβολα το ταχύτερο αυτοκίνητο του αγώνα. Πρέπει να καταλάβω τι πήγε στραβά σήμερα», είπε στο τέλος ο Πέρεζ, θέτοντας τη νίκη του Φερστάπεν στην πραγματική της διάσταση: αυτής που καθορίστηκε από την ανωτερότητά του με την RB19 αυτό το τριήμερο, παρά από το στρατηγικό του ρίσκο που απέδωσε πανηγυρικά και απρόσμενα.

Εξάλλου, και ο Χόρνερ εξέφρασε την άποψη ότι ο Φερστάπεν θα κέρδιζε ακόμα και με την ίδια στρατηγική με τον Πέρεζ. «Πιστεύω πως αυτό που κέρδισε τον αγώνα για τον Μαξ ήταν η ταχύτητά του στους γύρους 20-45», είπε ο Βρετανός. «Προφανώς και συζητείται η στρατηγική, όλα τα νούμερα εξετάζονται το βράδυ και ζυγίζουμε τα συν και τα πλην. Ο Μαξ και η ομάδα μηχανικών του αποφάσισαν να δοκιμάσουν [την εναλλακτική στρατηγική]. And I happily approved.”

Before the race, RBR calculated that Perez’s strategy (medium/hard) was 3 inches faster than Verstappen’s strategy (hard/medium) during the race. But as we saw, the data changed dramatically overnight.

An interesting question is whether Perez would have had higher hopes of winning had he opted for Verstappen’s strategy. Possibly yes, since he could have pushed initially, he could have used Verstappen’s relative lag in the seven overtakes he had to make to – the Mexican – close his own gap in sheer speed to Max.

But Perez and his engineers ruled out starting on the hard tire to avoid losing positions right at the start, which would have taken away part of the lead over Verstappen. But on the other hand, it might not have been difficult to overtake Alonso or Sainz again soon, with the RB19’s speed difference and especially if the DRS was on.

tire management

Finally, in this whole framework of tire management, it is also worth pointing out the note from Verstappen at the end, which comments on a more general opinion that prevails in F1 that Perez is generally more gentle with his tires, that he protects them better.

“People always say that, but I’ve never quite understood why»‘ said the master. “I think I’ve always done pretty well with the tires, but the differences are minimal. I think that’s been the case in recent years, you take better care of your tires and sometimes that works better than others.

»Here it was better than I expected. First I tried to figure out how they would hold up. Towards the middle of the stint I wasn’t so sure anymore and was probably a little slower than I would have liked. But that allowed me to move quickly in the end. That made my race because after my pit stop I was only 1.5 seconds behind and then you can of course overtake with fresher tires.”concluded the two-time champion.

THE Aston-Martin She has regained her form

With the data so far, we have the first gear team (Red Bull), the second gear fight (Aton Martin, Mercedes, Ferrari), the third gear and so on. After falling behind Ferrari at Baku, Aston Martin again won the battle for third place on the podium with Alonso – for whom his setup choices rarely fail each race Sunday. In this parameter, it is the Spaniard who is on another “planet”.

Alonso accepted the threat of an undercut by Sainz on lap 18 of the race, but he and the team could see the center tire still beginning to wear in his very delicate lead from the Spaniard. So they changed tires on lap 25 and his overlap option worked well.

That was in large part due to Sainz’s over-exertion trying to undercut on his cool-down lap, which caused the hard rubber to bake – with a Ferrari SF-23 that was overusing its tires anyway – and since then the Spaniard has lost a solid 8 tenths to the Scuderia a round over Alonso on the fresh hards.

And also in relation to George Russell, who held a converted Mercedes W14 in his hands during the race. The car that had been so clumsy in testing and unwieldy in slow corners was now running pretty sweetly and taking care of its tyres. Not, however, and not to the extent that the even-better Aston Martin is threatened in this field, but enough to comfortably overtake Saint’s – problematic in this field – Ferrari.

All of this happened, of course, while Red Bull hit 340km/h on the backstretch, a top speed 9km/h faster than the three ‘second gear’ teams on the F1 2023 stage so far.

Photo credit: Red Bull Content Pool