The Miami Grand Prix passes over and over again in the heads of various fans to try to understand what happened with Checo Pérez and the Red Bull strategy. The Mexican started from pole position and yet was relatively easy prey for Max Verstappen, who won the race despite starting from ninth.
With that, Checo missed the opportunity to take the lead in the Formula 1 drivers’ standings and much has been said about the fact that the Mexican started the race on medium compound tyres, with which he did not perform well, while Verstappen flew over the track on hard compound.
The mistake in Checo’s strategy
Checo opted to use the medium compound like most of the grid (11 drivers started on that compound, two on soft and seven on hard) and had a very good start, however, Christian Horner, director of the Red Bull team, indicated that the Mexican did not get the most out of him those tires in the first 10 laps, in addition to pitting a bit early.
Checo indicated that the performance of the medium tires was not as expected. “Very soon I saw that the environment was very fragile at the beginning, so I had to protect the tire a lot.” said the Mexican after the race.
However, Horner has other data, as they say out there, and he exemplified the case of Fernando Alonso, who did 25 laps on medium tires before entering breasts. “In the first 10 laps, (Czech) I was controlling the pace a lot, and I think he was nervous about the front right.”stated according to Racingnews.
“He was driving well into himself and the car to protect the right front end, and then he started to push after the first 10 laps and started to build a lead.”, mentioned.
The medium tires weren’t that fragile… and Alonso proved it
If the Mexican had pushed harder in those first 10 laps and had stayed on track longer, like Alonso, Czech would have built a wider lead with which he would have competed more with Verstappen, that is Horner’s theory.
“If I were to look at the race again I would push harder in that first stint why the medium tire turned out to be a very good tire, as we saw with Fernando traveling a long way” said.
Squeezing the medium tires until lap 25, Fernando Alonso reached the end of the race with 33 laps on the hard tyres, unlike Checo, who did 37 laps and was easy prey for the Dutchman.
