Red Bull has admitted that Max Verstappen was fortunate to avoid being collected at the start of Formula 1’s Miami Grand Prix amid Sergio Perez’s “optimistic” lunge.
Perez made a strong launch from fourth on the grid and capitalised on Charles Leclerc’s sluggish movement from the front row to angle his car to the inside at Turn 1.
However, the Mexican got in too hot on the brakes and almost clipped his pole-starting team-mate, who maintained the lead, while Perez slipped back to fifth position.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner, who conceded the team was fortunate to avoid a collision, argued Perez was encouraged to attempt the move due to Leclerc’s launch.
“His start was optimistic. Charles didn’t have a great start ahead… he had to lift for Charles and then he had a window into the first corner,” Horner recalled.
“He went for it, obviously got in very deep and was lucky not to collect Max at the first turn and not to collect the Ferrari coming back onto the track.
“So I was pleased to see most cars survive that.”
A similar incident had occurred in the earlier Sprint with Lewis Hamilton being involved in a four-car tangle when he was in the same predicament as Perez ended up.
Perez believes the two situations were comparable but rued his struggles for pace as he lagged home in fifth, which became fourth when Carlos Sainz was penalised.
“I had a good start, Charles had a really bad start, but as soon as I brake into the inside there was no grip, like with Lewis yesterday,” he reviewed.
“And offline there was no grip, and I ended up locking. I nearly took off Max out. So I had to come off the brake and I lost a position to Oscar [Piastri].
“It was quite unfortunate, but other than that, I think, we were struggling for some pace today.
“We just couldn’t manage to get a pace where we needed and, yeah, something that we got to work on to try and understand why, what was the issue.”
Meanwhile, Verstappen has disclosed that he was aware of how close Perez got to his RB20 car at the right-hander and even noted a mark on his diffuser post-race.
“I was very aware. I turned in and I saw him lock up,” he said. “And I looked after the race, there was like a scratch on my diffuser. So something must have hit.
“But yeah, it was very close. Could have ended in a disaster, of course, for the team as well. So yeah, lucky.”
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