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Max Verstappen revealed that he wasn't too happy with the car setup after winning the Miami GP sprint. The Red Bull driver started the race on pole, but everything was not as straightforward. Charles Leclerc had a decent start as well and if it wasn't for Verstappen squeezing him into turn 1, the Ferrari driver could have jumped ahead.
After keeping the lead in turn 1, Verstappen more or less managed the race from that point onwards. The driver nailed the restart and slowly pulled away from Leclerc throughout the race. In the end, the gap between the Red Bull driver and the Ferrari racer was not too big, which should be encouraging for Leclerc.
Talking about the 19-lap sprint, Max Verstappen revealed that the car setup was not optimal. However, the Red Bull driver looked at the positives as the team still had time to fine-tune the car before qualifying for the main race.
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Looking back at the sprint, Verstappen told the media (via Sky Sports):
"My engagement wasn’t good at the start so I had to squeeze him (Leclerc) a bit. Luckily everything worked out in turn 1. Then we had the Safety Car to calm things down a little bit, but after that, steadily we could increase the gap a little bit, but it wasn’t entirely perfect. So we still have a bit of work to do."
He added:
"At least now with the new format we can still fine-tune the car a little bit, so we hopefully we can improve it a little bit for later in qualifying and especially for tomorrow in the race. But a win is good. I’m happy with that and it gives us a good few points to look at to improve on."
Max Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez secures P3 in the sprint
Max Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez also had a decent race, as he secured P3. The driver lost a place to Daniel Ricciardo at the start and found it hard to make his way past the Australian.
Once he did, it was more or less straightforward for the Mexican as he secured his third consecutive P3 in a race. Reflecting on the race, Perez said (via Sky Sports):
"It was really hard to get through Daniel at the beginning. Once I got through I was three seconds from Charles and given the short duration of the race it was pretty tricky. I was getting within two seconds but then it was quite hard to get a little bit closer."
Max Verstappen will now shift focus to the race on Sunday (May 5), and it will be interesting to see what kind of setup Red Bull goes for after the sprint.
