Max Verstappen conceded that Lando Norris deserved to win the Miami Grand Prix, as the Briton took a maiden Formula 1 victory. Having shown strong pace throughout, Norris benefited from a timely safety car to pit and emerge in the lead and take the restart in the lead. He then gapped Verstappen on the restart and pulled away to record a first grand prix victory at the 110th attempt, which is the 309th for a British driver in F1, as he became the 21st to do so. Verstappen finished second for the first time in over a year, last doing so at the 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but conceded that the McLaren driver deserved the win. "I mean you win, you lose, and I think we are all used to that in racing," Verstappen explained. "Today was just a bit tricky and on the mediums, I didn't feel fantastic, but it didn't feel like it should and once we made the pit-stop, I heard what lap-times the McLaren was doing and I was like: 'Wow, that's pretty quick.' "Once they pitted onto the hard tyre, they just had more pace and Lando was flying. It was incredibly difficult for us at that stage. "But if a bad day is P2, I will take it and I'm happy for Lando. It has been a long-time coming and it is not going to be his last one and so he definitely deserves it.
Despite taking P1 in practice, the sprint shootout, the sprint and in grand prix qualifying, Verstappen complained about the balance of his RB20 throughout the weekend, including during the race. He described the problem as both understeer and oversteer. "McLaren came with an upgrade, and for sure, it looks like it works so we have a bit of work to do from our side," he said. "I had understeer, oversteer and very low grip on all four wheels, it is something we have to understand. "It definitely wasn't our strongest weekend in terms of race pace, but we'll analyse it and try to come back stronger."
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