Have them start from the last two places. They will come first and second. But at least we’ll see some overtaking and experience some excitement. In truth, the two of them, Max and Perez, battle and surpass each other. But only between them. Verstappen effortlessly solves his practice in only 15 laps, starting from ninth position, then it’s the Red Bull grand prix, nothing but that. In the end Max triumphs with a perfect race, with this car he is truly the strongest. Third Alonso, then Russell, Sainz and Hamilton ahead of Leclerc. Even the Mercedes in such bad shape that it puts even its drivers to shame, while awaiting the revolution that will arrive at Imola, leaves the Reds behind. They’re all better. In our house, on the other hand, the only feeling we experience is the disheartening one of the umpteenth disappointment. Every time they make a sea of promises, you’ll see that Vasseur fixes everything, that great technicians are arriving now, that the updates work and other lies like that. The reality of the race is shocking. Carry on like this, this car plunges Maranello back two years, to the wheelbarrow of 2021, the legendary F1-75. The results so far are more or less the same, even worse. The only podium went to Leclerc alone, going beyond the merits of the car. But how can you sincerely regret keeping someone as good as Leclerc in such a poor team?
The premises for a winning race
All the prerequisites for a race full of surprises were there. The Miami circuit, with its mixed perimeter of long straights, fast corners with loads and twisty sections with mechanical grip, is a track that does not allow breaks and puts the set-up and performance of the various cars to the test in all their components. As if all this weren’t enough, there is a high risk of rain (30 per cent probability) looming over the race, after the night’s downpour which had already changed the track conditions. The Red Bulls have such clearly superior cars that their great advantage can hardly be called into question even in a difficult situation, as evidenced by the pole position conquered by Sergio Perez, on a weekend during which, as he himself confessed, he had no never struggled so much to find the right feeling with the car, to the point of even being surprised by the result (“I was pessimistic, I didn’t have confidence”). But the lottery of qualifying drove Max Verstappen back to ninth place, therefore forced to a comeback race on a circuit where overtaking in theory would not be so simple at all. Furthermore, in front, in addition to the Ferraris, whose reliability appears rather dubious due to the age-old and unsolved problem of tire wear, there is the renewed Haas driven by Magnussen, with the right mechanical set-up and a completely redone underbody, as well as to the eternal Fernando Alonso who could have an important chance on this track with his Aston Martin, given the excellent tire management in a race that should certainly be characterized by high degradation. For the opposite reason, the Ferraris do not enjoy favorable forecasts before the start, beyond all the declarations of intent, promises and hopes of the fans. In any case, the images of Max during the tests are printed in his eyes, as he flew effortlessly, whistling with his elbow on the window and the cigarette between his fingers, at double speed compared to all the others. Can there be competition against them? The aggressive trajectories of Perez and Verstappen during free practice highlighted a single-seater that manages to tackle any difficulty without problems, capable of digesting the curbs well, rigid at the right point to generate load without getting upset on the bumps. When Leclerc tried to repeat the same trajectory on the curb in qualifying, the car couldn’t handle the effort.
The reality of the race
That the race is not going well for Leclerc can already be seen on the fourth lap, when he is overtaken in one fell swoop by Magnussen and Verstappen, already very fast in a splendid comeback, seeing them slip by helplessly to his right and to his left. Up front Perez leads the group, in strict single file, but without gaps, thus facilitating the task of the world champion who puts together the fastest laps one after the other. After 9 laps he is already fourth behind Sainz, who is not doing badly unlike Leclerc. But from the fifteenth lap, all hopes of seeing an uncertain and hard-fought race have already vanished, Verstappen completes his comeback and throws himself in the hunt for Perez. When the Mexican goes to the pits, he takes the lead. If the two of them see it, for us not even crumbs. Even Miami seems to have become the Red Bull Grand Prix. The others at the window shoulder each other for the only free place on the podium, which is the lowest, third place. While the Ferraris sink. Sainz held on for a while, although after the halfway point he was fourth side-by-side with Ocon and a 5-second penalty to serve, before getting into trouble and giving up some more positions. Leclerc, on the other hand, is increasingly down, at one point he’s not even in the top ten, and he complains on the radio that his car jumps everywhere. The music is always the same: they have built a car for just one lap, and Charles takes care of that. Then in the race, he wears tires, busted aerodynamics, a river of words to make believe who knows what, and the results are not only merciless. I am a condemnation. Even the rumors artfully spread about the grandiose transfer campaign to restore some confidence to the fans risk turning out to be the usual bluff. They threw in the name of Enrico Balbo, one of Red Bull’s best technicians, right arm of that genius Newey, but a German newspaper flatly denied it and Vasseur himself said that there is no signature. The truth is that only two second row technicians will arrive.
In the end Vasseur grapples with straws: «We have to open our eyes. Today we were hit and miss. And we need to understand why. It’s a question of consistency.” That’s all? The updates will arrive at Imola, they ask him. And he: «The updates are not important. We have to focus on consistency.” Sadly, he actually said it. We’re OK. This is how they reduced Ferrari, which no longer even looks like Ferrari, but a third-row stable, with no history, which is just now appearing in F1. Let’s get ready for another fool at our home in Imola.