Rival team principal admits luck played a role in Lando Norris beating Max Verstappen at Miami GP

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has opined that luck played a critical role in Lando Norris beating Max Verstappen at the Miami GP. The race in Miami was a very interesting scenario where the safety car timing flipped the script on its head and gave the McLaren driver the lead.

In general, as has been the case in the Red Bull dominance, Max Verstappen, who was behind Lando Norris, was expected to jump the McLaren driver in due time and regain control of the race. To the surprise of many, that didn't happen, as Lando just had a better pace and Max could not keep up.

There was, however, an unmistakable case of the driver benefiting from the safety car as well. At the time of the interruption, Lando Norris was leading the race and had a 10-12 second advantage over Max Verstappen, who was subsequently around 2 seconds clear of Charles Leclerc.

If a conventional race had taken place and Lando had pitted under normal conditions, he would have come out behind Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, and maybe even Carlos Sainz. In that scenario, making his way through the field to win would have been highly unlikely. As quoted by RacingNews365, this was something that Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur also touched upon, as he said,

"I would say that probably Lando [Norris] was a bit lucky, because he was the only one on track. But more than this, I think it's the fact that they put the safety car in front of [Max] Verstappen."

He added.

"They are so used to having Verstappen leading the pack that they sent the safety car in front of him and the safety car was quite slow and it was a very good move at the end for Lando."

Fred Vasseur claims 4 to 5 cars including Max Verstappen and Lando Norris could have won the Miami GP

Looking back at the race, Fred Vasseur felt that there were as many as 4-5 drivers who could have possibly won if they had the right strategy, conditions, or luck going in their favor.

During the race, these cars fell in favor of Lando Norris and compromised Max Verstappen and hence we had the result that we got in the end. He said,

"I think that you had a group of four or five cars able to win today - or even six, because [Oscar] Piastri had a good pace. It is like it is now, it's the fight on track that the circumstances, the strategy - the track position in Miami - are dictating the result at the end."

The future of the 2024 F1 season does look bright at the moment, especially since McLaren has taken a big step forward while Ferrari is possibly coming in with its major upgrade package and Red Bull is trying to keep a decent buffer on the chasing pack.