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MIAMI (Reuters) – Formula One world champion Max Verstappen won the inaugural Miami Grand Prix for Red Bull Racing on Sunday, cutting his overall lead over Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc from 27 points to 19 after five races.
Leclerc started from pole position and finished second, 3.786 seconds behind, with his Spanish teammate Carlos Sainz rounding out the podium at the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium.
It was the Dutch driver’s third win of the season and second in a row, as he passed Sainz from the outside at the start to take second place before overtaking Leclerc on lap nine of 57.
Verstappen also secured a bonus point for fastest lap and looked to have won comfortably until McLaren’s Lando Norris collided with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and crashed on lap 41, triggering the safety car.
This allowed Leclerc to close the gap and get back into contention in the final 10 laps.
“It was an incredible Grand Prix,” said Verstappen, who has won every race he has completed so far this season and received the championship trophy from Dolphins NFL quarterback Dan Marino. “(It was) very intense, but I think we kept it exciting until the end.”
The event attracted A-list celebrities, sports superstars and sold-out crowds, with Formula One also enjoying a surge in popularity, helped by the Netflix documentary “Drive.”
“It’s crazy. I’ve never seen such attention, such passion and such a big event,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said. “I think it’s a good thing that the American public is tuning in to watch Formula 1. … It’s a great event and it’s exciting racing.”
Miami Heat
The race was slow going in exhausting wet conditions but tightened up in the final moments as the safety car rolled out, with Leclerc close behind Verstappen with five laps to go.
“On the hard tyre we were very competitive and towards the end of the race I thought I could overtake Max, but today they had the advantage on pace,” said Leclerc.
Verstappen’s Mexican teammate Sergio Perez finished fourth as Ferrari maintained its lead in the constructors’ standings with 157 points to Red Bull’s 151.
Perez lost pace due to a sensor problem (which the team has since fixed) and tried to overtake Sainz on lap 52 but overdid it and the Spaniard forced his way back to the front and maintained the lead despite Sainz’s fresher tyres.
George Russell continued his streak of finishing in the top five in every race to date, while his Mercedes team-mate and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was sixth after a brief battle between the two.
Russell started in 12th place, but due to a pit stop during the Virtual Safety Car period and a fresh tyre he overtook Hamilton twice on track.
He gave the position back after the first overtake as he benefited from taking the outside line, but then overtook him again immediately afterwards.
Valtteri Bottas finished seventh for Alfa Romeo, while Esteban Ocon of Alpine was eighth. Ocon was unable to take part in Saturday’s qualifying session after the team was forced to change the chassis of his car following a crash in practice.
Double world champion team-mate Fernando Alonso was demoted to 11th place after receiving a five-second penalty for colliding with Gasly.
Due to Alonso’s penalty, Alex Albon moved up to ninth place and Aston Martin’s Stroll moved up to tenth place.
It was heartbreaking for Mick Schumacher, who had been racing well so far and looked on track to score his first Formula One points, but then he collided with Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel and teammate Stroll were unable to enter the starting area due to fuel temperature problems, so they both started from the pit lane.
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