Martin Brundle on the result of the Miami Grand Prix

Former Formula 1 driver, Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brundle summed up the Miami Grand Prix…

I like it. As the race progressed, the intrigue continued over which Red Bull driver would win until Max Verstappen had a lightning stretch that gave him the race win and the team’s fourth double win in the past five grands prix.

We saw great wheel-to-wheel struggles and spectacular overtaking maneuvers including George Russell in a Mercedes and Carlos Sainz in a Ferrari.

In the middle group the results are so close that the battle in qualifying and the race is incredibly sharp and spectacular. It’s a shame this isn’t a battle for victory or a podium.

Kevin Magnussen, in my opinion the best driver of the day, started from a high fourth place in the home race for Haas F1, fought aggressively around the course, including actively countering Charles Leclerc, and finished tenth.

We saw a lot of overtaking in the 1st, 11th and 17th turns. Surprisingly, all twenty cars made it to the finish line on a high-speed street. The lack of a safety car or red flags robbed the race of additional intrigue.

It’s a pity that Red Bull broke the rules last year by going over budget caps, but they dominate and the rest have to do better.

With open DRS, Red Bull’s cars are so fast no matter where they start that they will confidently earn a winning double if there are no additional issues. Their speed is incredible and that’s what the other teams should focus on, although it won’t be easy. It’s about the overall design philosophy of the car, which won’t be changed by regular updates, even if they understand how Red Bull achieved such an effect.

The cautious Verstappen even lost ground on the first lap and fell back to 10th place, but he knew full well that he would quickly bounce back once DRS was allowed.

Of course I would prefer at least two teams fighting for the victories, that would be much better. But believe me when I say Murray Walker and I would have given it our all 25 years ago if there were as many battles on the track as there are now.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about how to make racing better. I worry that the 2023 cars are getting more and more downforce, which is not conducive to increasing spectacle.

The incredibly efficient DRS performance of Red Bull’s cars creates a new fundamental problem: they literally rush past rivals that have become harder to overtake due to the shortening of the length of the DRS zones compared to last year. The problem is complex, but there’s nothing the FIA ​​can do about it – other teams need to catch up.

To some extent, the situation is saved by Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso. The fourth podium of the season is incredible. Now he’s best of the rest behind Red Bull and looks perfectly happy.

George Russell is another of my contenders for the Driver of the Day award and had a good race, helped by Mercedes’ increased long-term competitiveness.

Ferrari lacks race pace. Fifth and seventh place is a bad result. Leclerc has to stop crashing the car – it’s stopping him and the team. Incidents like this always have repercussions over the weekend and after an accident in qualifying he had to change the bottom, which may have contributed to the build-up and problems he complained about during the race.

Charles is an incredibly fast and driven racer, he can afford to sacrifice a small part of this speed for a better race weekend, and therefore a better season. He must lead the team to high performance and not keep the mechanics under constant stress.

Eighth and ninth places gave Alpine some relief from their setbacks in Australia and Azerbaijan after Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi publicly flogged them. All teams, except Red Bull, are feeling serious pressure, so it continues.

Let’s politely ignore McLaren’s terrible weekend. I have no idea what’s going on with their car. Apparently they do too. Lando Norris remains optimistic and manages the situation, and Oscar Piastri does the only thing he can by relentlessly pursuing Lando.

I didn’t really like the new procedure for introducing riders before the start, but it has its own audience. Formula 1 has young fans, a completely different demographic, in the leadership of the championship they are trying different options. It must be said that before the ceremony, the riders had already done a slow circle around the track in open cars as part of the pilot parade.

It seemed to me that the long presentation ceremony was a distraction from the most important thing, from the energy that emanated from twenty incredibly fast cars on the grid, from hundreds of qualified specialists and high-tech equipment. It seems to me that this tension should be maintained until the start.

Walking across the starting field with a microphone is my regular role. This is improvisation, we don’t plan anything in advance. This time the absolute star was Sir Jackie Stewart. He’s 83 years old, but he decided to get behind the fence and drag Roger Federer into a live interview with me. As events unfolded I began to worry for him when the guards intervened and George Russell was brought in. At that point I had the countdown in my earpiece until the start of the riders presentation, but in the end everything worked out with Roger – and it was amazing!