Max Verstappen has played down his chances of winning Saturday’s Sprint at the Miami Grand Prix, citing the chronic limitations of Red Bull’s RB21 in low-speed corners and the Florida heat as major hurdles.
The reigning World Champion showed his usual composure and commitment to the cause, steering his Red Bull to fourth place on the grid in Sprint Qualifying – behind Kimi Antonelli’s stunning pole lap and the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
While not thrilled with the result, the overjoyed father of new-born baby daughter Lily accepted the outcome given the circuit’s characteristics, which expose the current shortcomings of the RB21.
“I think what we did in Q3 was good, the tyres are holding on quite well, but unfortunately, already from FP1, we’re just struggling with a lot of understeer in the car and around here with all these low-speed corners, you just lose quite a bit of lap time,” commented Verstappen.
“I think you can see in the first sector we’re quite competitive because that’s where a few high-speed corners are.
“But as soon as you get to the low speed, we just lack quite a bit of grip.
“P4 is alright, I mean, it’s of course not where I want to be, but you also need to be realistic with the limitations that we have at the moment and I think it was still, quite close.”
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Those “limitations” include not only cornering balance but also tyre performance – especially in the hot and humid conditions typical of a Miami weekend.
Verstappen himself is keeping his expectations measured.
“Honestly, it’s always very difficult to say in a Sprint weekend because there’s no real proper data on long runs because, you don’t know what others are doing with fuel loads and stuff,” he said.
Tsunoda Frustrated by Miscommunication and Traffic
It was a far more difficult session for Yuki Tsunoda, Verstappen’s teammate who was left fuming after an early SQ1 exit — his first of the season.
The Japanese driver’s qualifying effort was derailed by traffic at pit exit, and he didn’t hide his frustration.
“Some intelligent car just came out from [the] pit and [I had to] abort my lap,” Tsunoda said, quoted by Motorsport week.
“A lot of cars cost my lap quite a lot. First lap… yeah, to be honest that’s it. In the last corner I had quite a lock-up, but to be honest the lap was pretty gone already from Turn 1 because of the car at pit exit.
“Just [wasn’t] able to do a proper lap at all, so that’s it.
“Communication is pretty poor as well and, just in general, I didn’t [do] a proper Qualifying.”
Read also: Verstappen shares first thoughts after daughter's birthTsunoda will line up 18th for the Sprint, and while the Japanese driver remains optimistic, he acknowledged the challenge ahead.
“It’s pretty far back,” he said. “I’ll try my best obviously, anything can happen at this track. I keep positive and I’ll do my best.”
With both Verstappen and Tsunoda adopting realistic outlooks ahead of Saturday’s race, the Miami Sprint promises to be as much about opportunity as outright pace.
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