Max Verstappen was unable to convert pole position into victory at the 2025 Miami Grand Prix, but nevertheless admitted that he had "a bit of fun out there" defending against both McLaren drivers during the race.
The race weekend at the Miami International Autodrome got off to a poor start for the defending Champion, as he failed to score points during Saturday's sprint race.
Despite finishing fourth on the road, the Dutchman received a ten-second penalty for an unsafe release in the pitlane and crashing into the rear of Andrea Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes. This demoted Verstappen to 17th and last of the remaining runners.
However, the Red Bull driver turned his fortunes around when it mattered to claim pole position for the Grand Prix later on the same day, pipping McLaren's Lando Norris to P1 by just 0.065 seconds.
Unfortunately Verstappen was unable to retain the lead for long on Sunday. He held off Norris on the opening lap by forcing the Briton off the track at the second corner, but eventually both Piastri, Norris and the Mercedes of George Russell passed the Red Bull, relegating the four-time World Champion to fourth at the chequered flag.
Over and above his opening lap tussle with Norris, Verstappen staunchly defended against both McLarens later on in the race. Speaking after the Grand Prix, the Dutch driver commented on these on-track battles.
He said: "I tried to do my best, we put ourselves in a good starting position and I tried to of course give it a good battle, have a bit of fun out there as well.
"But we couldn't keep them behind and then the rest was just a little bit unlucky with the VSC.
"But at the end of the day it doesn't really matter a lot when you're P3 or P4, we are here of course to target a win and we were very far from that today," added Verstappen.
When asked about his incident with Norris in the opening few corners of the race, Verstappen gave a short response.
He simply stated: "All good, yeah, it's my view.
Towards the end of the Grand Prix, Verstappen was unable to make inroads on Russell for the final podium spot, despite the Mercedes struggling on degraded medium tyres.
When asked why he didn't have the pace against Russell, Verstappen claimed: "Just struggling a lot with the brakes again the whole weekend, so very inconsistent, that's a bit of a problem."
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