Can Perez keep up the pressure on Verstappen? Six Miami Grand Prix talking points · RaceFans

For the first time in 2023, Formula 1 teams head into the second leg of back-to-back race weekends as the series swaps the historic, windy city of Baku for the tropical playground of Miami.

The second Miami Grand Prix, held around a temporary street circuit in the grounds of the Miami Dolphins NFL stadium is the first of three races in the United States this season. But after a lukewarm race back in 2022, will this weekend offer more action for the fans who turn up at the Miami International Autodrome for round five?

Can Perez keep up the pressure?

Sergio Perez put his difficult Australian Grand Prix weekend behind him in the best possible way in Baku last weekend. Not just by winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but taking victory in the sprint race on Saturday along the way.

But unlike his four previous wins with the Red Bull team, which all came following come kind of misfortune befalling team mate Max Verstappen, Perez might well have genuinely been the stronger of the two last weekend. Even if the timing of the Safety Car worked far more in Perez’s favour than Verstappen’s, Perez had just drawn within DRS range of his team mate at the point Verstappen was called into the pits, meaning he could soon have been about to take the lead anyway.

In a season where, for now at least, the Red Bulls only have themselves to worry about when it comes to the fight for this year’s drivers’ title, Verstappen knows that he can afford to drop a handful of points to Perez on a single weekend. That, perhaps, was the reason why he was unusually comfortable with the idea of finishing second to his team mate at the Baku City Circuit – a track where Perez has always been at his best.

Last year in Miami, Verstappen was comfortably the quicker of the two. While Verstappen took the lead from the Ferraris early and went on to win, Perez was trouble by power unit problems and had to settle for a finish off the podium, behind Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr. If Verstappen has any kind of slip-up this weekend, it will fling the door open for Perez to take the championship lead.

Salute to Sargeant

So many articles have been published analysing Formula 1’s unprecedented boost in popularity in the United States that if each of them were printed out and laid end-to-end, they would probably stretch across the width of the Florida peninsula.

But for decades, the prevailing wisdom has always been that for an American audience to truly buy…