Verstappen sends championship message to Red Bull team-mate Perez

Max Verstappen sent an ominous message to his Red Bull Racing team-mate Sergio Perez with a dominant win at the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday.

Starting ninth after an early red flag in qualifying, Verstappen made the alternate strategy work perfectly, beginning on the harder tyre compared to his rivals in front, making a late change onto the mediums to cruise past Perez to claim his third win of the season.

Perez had led all of the 57-lap race prior to his first and only pit-stop, but Verstappen’s pace - evident throughout the weekend despite the qualifying issue - was too much for him to deal with as the Dutchman claimed a simple win.

A week earlier, the Mexican had done the sprint and Grand Prix double to close the gap to Verstappen in the championship lead. However, the Dutchman’s pace in Floria sent a big message to his team-mate that he remains very much the man to beat this season.

“Today was a good day,” said the race winner. “I stayed out of trouble at the beginning and I had a smooth race, I picked the cars off one by one. I had a good stint on the hard tyres which I think was integral to the win.

“I had a good battle with Checo towards the end there too. I of course had the advantage with the new tyres but I think that’s what we like to see, we are free to race.

“Qualifying was a bit of a setback, today we kept it calm and clean, and winning the race from P9 was very satisfying.”

For Perez, seeing Verstappen’s daunting pace in the same machinery left him scratching his head in the aftermath as he gave up the win.

He said: “It is not always nice when you lead the race and end up second, certainly I didn’t have the pace of Max and it is something we are going to analyse to see how we can do better.

“When I saw how strong Max was coming through the field and I was struggling a bit, I thought ‘this isn’t looking too good’.

“This is one to learn from because clearly Max had the fastest pace. I think the performance Max showed today was not reachable for me, so I have to understand why.”