Papaya rules – but Verstappen is still a threat

Three contrasting tracks, three different winners as the F1 season continues to remain tightly contested. Mark Hughes reports on the latest twists and turns

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This sequence gave us three very distinct circuit characteristics to further piece together the competitive jigsaw of how the 2025 cars compare.

Miami confirmed with more certainty two things suggested in earlier races: that if the circuit layout doesn’t punish the Red Bull’s narrow balance window too much, Max Verstappen can spoil McLaren’s party - in qualifying. Secondly, the higher the rear tyre demand, the bigger McLaren’s race advantage becomes.

But around the faster Imola, when the tyre challenge changed from core temperatures to those of the surface, we saw that the Red Bull party pooping could extend to the race. One more piece of the jigsaw.

Then came Monaco where the combination of slow corners and a low-grip bumpy surface took the Red Bull out of the competitive picture but allowed for a dramatic return to form for Ferrari.

The Miami International Circuit’s layout asks a lot of the rear tyres with several key traction zones just after heavy braking from high speeds. Combine that with the highest track temperatures of the season to date - and McLaren was able to finish over half-a-minute clear of the opposition on its way to an Oscar Piastri-Lando Norris 1-2. This despite it taking 14 laps for the first of them to find a way around pole-sitter Verstappen.