Max Verstappen Puts Red Bull on Miami GP Front Row After Key Upgrades: “We’ve Turned a Corner”

Front row for the Miami Grand Prix. That sentence would have seemed like a stretch when Max Verstappen was doing damage limitation in Sprint qualifying on Friday, starting fifth on the Sprint grid and spending Saturday trading paint with Lewis Hamilton in the race itself. By Saturday evening, the story looked considerably different.

Verstappen had arrived in Miami carrying a Red Bull that was, by his own admission, “still not where I want it to be,” six tenths off Lando Norris‘s Sprint pole time despite the team shipping several upgrades to Florida, including an adaptation of Ferrari‘s flip-flop rear wing concept.

The improvements were serious but expectations were still low. Grand Prix qualifying changed that. Verstappen put it on the front row, and afterwards explained exactly what shifted.

Red Bull’s Push Finally Paying Off

“For me, it’s been two things,” Verstappen said. “For sure, the car has not been great in the previous races, but also from my side I never felt comfortable with the layout of the car, and over the last few weeks the team has been pushing flat out to try to bring upgrades to the car and making me feel more comfortable with a lot of things in the car.”

That combination – hardware improvements meeting a driver who can finally trust what the car will do – is what actually produces lap time. One without the other doesn’t get you to the front row. “It really pays off,” the four-time champion added. “I feel more in control of the car again, and then I can push a bit more. Then the upgrades are working. To be on the front row is way better than I expected heading into this weekend.”