Max Verstappen is not letting up in his quest to improve Red Bull’s reliability after he won the Miami Grand Prix despite a disrupted weekend.
Having made contact with the barrier in FP1, the reigning champion was forced to sit out a large chunk of the first practice session, before a hydraulic failure in FP2 ruled him out of the second session entirely.
All told, the Dutchman was only able to set 35 laps during practice in Florida, but he still looked a contender for pole before his mistake on his final run, opening the door for Ferrari to lock out the front row for the first time since 2019.
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But Verstappen got ahead of Carlos Sainz off the start, and passed Charles Leclerc during the first stint, winning the race following a late surge from the Monegasque as a result of a Safety Car.
Verstappen took maximum points from a weekend that continued his trend of winning every race he has finished this season so, while the victory is sweet, the bitterness arrives in the fact that he would probably be leading the championship right now had it not been for reliability failures in Bahrain and Australia.
“We’re still having a few issues we have to solve,” he said, quoted by The Race.
“We are quick, but as you can see, my Friday was terrible, which is not great if you want to have a good weekend. And also Checo had a few issues in the race, so we have to be on top of that.
“Clearly there is a lot of potential, we just need to make sure it’s reliable.”
The 24-year-old was asked whether it is the small details or the overall reliability that is causing the issues, but he affirms that getting the small details right is the key to good reliability.
“Well, yeah, it’s both, right? I had a lot of issues on Friday, which compromises your weekend, and especially qualifying,” he explained.
“Of course in the race, everything went well with the start but it also could have been the other way around. And then you can say like, ‘Well, fair enough, because if you missed almost [the] whole Friday, what can you do about it?’”
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Overall, Verstappen is aware that more consistency is needed to retain his title, but he notes that the team are in the slightly easier position of trying to make a fast car reliable rather than the other way around.
“We just have to nail down a really positive weekend without issues. Of course, Imola, we had that, but it’s still a bit of a hit and miss too much,” he added.
“We just have to make sure that we are more reliable and more on top of things. But as you can see the car is quick. I’m very happy about that.
“I mean, if you would be slow and reliable, that’s probably also not a good thing.”
Verstappen’s victory in the United States leaves him 19 points behind Leclerc in the Drivers’ Standings.