How Lewis Hamilton Beat Max Verstappen in a Race Neither of Them Won

When the rain came and went four times in Miami, one driver trusted his instincts and one driver trusted his pit wall. The gaps tell you who made the right call.

Max Verstappen started on pole. Lewis Hamilton started P12. Verstappen finished fourth. Hamilton finished eighth — but ahead of Verstappen on track when the red flag fell.

The rain came, went, came back, and left again. One driver read it correctly. The other didn't.

Key Finding

Hamilton started P12 and finished ahead of Verstappen, who started on pole — and the decision that cost Verstappen wasn't made in the cockpit.

Key Finding

Hamilton started P12 and finished ahead of Verstappen, who started on pole — and the decision that cost Verstappen wasn't made in the cockpit.

Miami handed both drivers the same problem four times: guess when the track goes from wet to dry, dry to wet, wet to dry again. Get it wrong and you're sliding on slicks through standing water or grinding intermediates into a drying track.

Hamilton's first stint ran 23 laps. Verstappen's ran 24. Virtually identical. But what happened next decided who won this private battle.

Verstappen's team guessed mediums. Hamilton's went hard.

HAM vs VER — tyre strategy across 57 laps

Look at stint two — the yellow bar (Verstappen's mediums) and the blue bar (Hamilton's hards) cover the same laps, but different compounds.

HAM: n→H→M | VER: n→M→H

Key Finding

Hamilton started P12 and finished ahead of Verstappen, who started on pole — and the decision that cost Verstappen wasn't made in the cockpit.

Laps 24–32: the second transition window. The track was drying but not dry. Verstappen's team bolted on mediums. Hamilton's chose hards.

The mediums were the wrong tyre. Verstappen's degradation in that stint was minus 1.2 seconds per lap — which in wet-dry conditions means the compound never switched on. He was slower than he'd been on the intermediates. Hamilton's hards degraded positively at 1.2 seconds per lap, which means they came to temperature and then held. His average pace in that window was 99.2 seconds. Verstappen's was 101.1. Two seconds a lap — in eight laps, that's a 16-second swing.

The gap exploded after Verstappen's second stop

HAM vs VER — gap between them on every lap

Lap 26 is Verstappen's stop onto mediums. Watch the red line drop — that's Hamilton closing at two seconds per lap.

HAM aheadVER ahead

Final gap: VER ahead by 20.2s.

Key Finding

Hamilton started P12 and finished ahead of Verstappen, who started on pole — and the decision that cost Verstappen wasn't made in the cockpit.

By the time both drivers made their third stops — Hamilton onto mediums, Verstappen onto hards — the damage was done. Verstappen had lost track position he never got back. Hamilton's final stint averaged 91.0 seconds. Verstappen's averaged 90.8. Functionally identical. The race was already over.

Verstappen's team had one job in that second stint: don't guess. Wait two more laps, see if the rain comes back, and make the call with information instead of hope. They guessed. Hamilton's team waited.

Key Finding

Hamilton started P12 and finished ahead of Verstappen, who started on pole — and the decision that cost Verstappen wasn't made in the cockpit.

Neither driver won the race — Oscar Piastri did. But when you start on pole and finish behind someone who qualified P12, someone made the wrong call. The driver who lost pole position didn't lose this race in the cockpit.

At Imola, watch how both teams handle a drying track. One of them learned something in Miami. The other one should have.

Jamie Carver

@@jamiecarver_f1

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