'Under pressure from Leclerc, the 'brilliant' Verstappen remained disciplined'

Peter Windsor is impressed with Max Verstappen's performance. According to the former Williams team manager, Verstappen was brilliant after the restart behind the safety car.

Attack by Leclerc

Verstappen drove to a handsome victory at the Miami Grand Prix, but it didn't come easy. The Dutchman started from third place, and had already overtook Carlos Sainz at the first corner and Leclerc before lap ten, but a safety car in the final stage of the race caused his lead of over seven seconds to disappear.

''That was always going to be a difficult and critical moment for Red Bull (when the safety car came on the track), because they have a certain plan for how they want to get their tyres up to temperature, but there wasn't enough time to play around," Windsor says in his video after the Miami GP. According to Windsor, this was a difficult moment for Verstappen. In fact, he wanted Leclerc out of his DRS within three laps, but didn't want to push the tyres.

Verstappen remains calm

After three laps, Leclerc was still in Verstappen's DRS and was able to attack with a big speed differential. However, Windsor looked at Verstappen here and saw that he was totally unresponsive to the approaching Leclerc. Verstappen calmly stuck to the plan and drove away from the Monegasque step by step.

''This is the moment when you have to say this is a brilliant win for Verstappen. Despite that (the pressure from Leclerc) he remained disciplined, calmly brought the tyres up to temperature, didn't fluster with the pressure and drove further away from Charles little by little. In the last period of the race, Leclerc lost the benefit of DRS,'' Windsor concludes.