Despite taking pole position and ‘barely’ winning the sprint race, Max Verstappen’s Miami Grand Prix did not go as planned.
After making his one and only pit stop of the race on Sunday, Lando Norris took advantage of the timing of a safety car to take the lead. The McLaren driver made the most of the circumstance, winning his maiden grand prix of the race with ease.
But Norris benefited from Verstappen’s issues. The 26-year-old world champion made a rare error on lap 21 after teammate Sergio Perez almost took him out at the start due to a scratched diffuser.
At Turn 14, the Dutchman went straight forward into the narrow chicane, damaging the floor.
Team principal Christian Horner stated, “He hit the bollard around Lap 20 and that’s actually done quite a bit of damage to the underside of the car.” Therefore, we’ll need to examine the precise consequences of it.
“But he was moving quickly enough at that point to avoid getting caught up by Lando and Oscar [Piastri] before he sustained that damage.”
Pause periods
How much of a disruption did Verstappen actually experience is the question. Gianpiero Lambiase, the engineer, was heard on the radio during the race, informing Verstappen that he was trailing Norris by nearly all of his time through the first corner.
Horner attested to this following the race.
“He lost two and a half tenths every lap in turn one,” he stated. “Now whether that was because of the damage, I think when you actually see the pictures of what was missing it wasn’t designed like that.”
Later on, it was evident—in part because of close-up video—that Verstappen actually did have a tiny hole in his floor. His error caused him to bounce over the kerb, which caused a little piece of carbon to come loose.
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Verstappen was undoubtedly down on speed because the floor plays a significant role in producing downforce under the current ground effect restrictions.
But if Verstappen hadn’t sustained floor damage, might he have challenged Norris? Although we can never be certain, lap times appear to indicate that it did have a slight impact.
With older tires, Verstappen lost three tenths of a second every lap on average, and almost all of that loss can be attributed to the first corner. Of course, Verstappen had trouble with his RB20 the entire weekend, and Norris was somewhat faster in other spots, but maybe the race would have been more thrilling if the Red Bull driver hadn’t erred.
