Lando Norris defeated Max Verstappen to win the Miami Grand Prix, making history as the 21st British driver to win a Formula 1 race: Martin Brundle of Sky Sports Formula One shares his thoughts on a busy Miami weekend.
Over the years, I’ve rarely seen a Formula 1 victory that is as widely celebrated as the one we saw with Lando Norris in Miami.
Up there are the victories of Ayrton Senna in the 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix and Nigel Mansell at Silverstone in 1992. Some would be Ferrari victories at Monza, but they were all undoubtedly national treasures.
Lando’s biggest opponents expressed their happiness for him, and it was obviously long overdue for the driver (in especially) and the team to win a Grand Prix main event as opposed to a Sprint. We were unable to measure him in the 19-lap dash since he was abruptly eliminated from the Sprint on Saturday.
Although he is such a well-known driver throughout the world, I’m sure that many were also happy to see Red Bull and the unpredictable Max Verstappen eventually defeated in the late stages purely by speed.
Undoubtedly, Lando had the opportunity to win in Russia in 2021 and possibly at Monza as well, but circumstances prevented him from doing so, and doubts started to arise about whether or not it would ever happen.
Saying that the safety car on lap 28 was fortunate for them is simple, but the situation is more complex than that. After losing out to a wild Perez moment on the slick inside line into the first corner, which miraculously and with skillful driving did not remove both Red Bulls, or anyone else for that matter, Norris had to wait his turn behind Sergio Perez in the first phase.
Once past, Norris and his teammate Oscar Piastri, who was running in second place and keeping Verstappen well in sight and both Ferraris behind at first, had incredible pace with their modified McLarens. Piastri’s car also included some of the new pieces.
Max had to exert a lot of force on this particular day, and he made an uncommon error at the turn 14/15 chicane, bouncing across the kerbs and escape route after clouting the bollard indicating the apex. This partially damaged his vehicle and necessitated the employment of a virtual safety car to find the lost marker.
Because of their increased “luck,” McLaren was able to run quicker and longer, which finally gave them the chance to pit when the safety car was brought in as a result of a collision between Logan Sargeant and Kevin Magnussen.
It only required a “cheap” 11 seconds of lost time to navigate the pitlane and make a stop when making a pit stop while his major competitors are restricted to safety car speeds, as opposed to the net 20 seconds lost at full speed under typical race conditions.
