The Dutchman delivered a relentless and flawlessly executed drive to win the Miami Grand Prix, putting the pretender to the throne, his Red Bull teammate Sergio Pérez, to the sword with clinical efficiency. The pair had started the race separated by eight places, with Pérez on pole and Verstappen in ninth. He has now extended his lead in the world championship over Pérez to 14 points after five meetings. Pérez had held his lead well into turn one, while Verstappen set off after him. Starting from ninth Verstappen’s engineers had opted for the hard to start, which proved to be a superb decision. After Pérez had pitted and the Dutchman went long he delivered a vital sequence of circuits between laps 20 and 40. The lead was 18 seconds when the world champion pitted on lap 45 and he emerged under two seconds behind Pérez with 12 laps to go.

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