The packed grandstands, passionate crowd and the South Beach nightlife made the inaugural Miami Grand Prix a resounding success. Turning around a Friday disaster into a race victory from the second row of the grid made it a weekend to remember for Max Verstappen.

The Dutchman, the reigning World Champion, romped to his third victory of the season but after the opening day of practice he was given long odds to achieve that feat. A series of reliability issues on the opening day put the Red Bull driver on the back foot. The 24 year old only managed 15 laps during the opening practice sessions at the brand new venue. With a technical track to get up to speed on Verstappen was behind the curve with his chief rival, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, having completed more than triple his mileage on Friday. For Verstappen the challenge was clear but a mistake in qualifying left him third on the grid.

Afterwards Verstappen said that the track was “not easy to learn and it’s always difficult to find the limit in qualifying when you don’t know the circuit fully.” He would make up for that on Sunday by making a fantastic start and instantly jumping into second ahead of Carlos Sainz.

At the start Verstappen knew that being mistake free would be the key to winning at the technical Miami Autodrome. With walls lining the track mistakes would be punished heavily. Over the course of 57 laps he would lead all but nine as he managed the race to perfection even though a late safety car put him under pressure from Leclerc.

“It feels amazing to win in Miami,” said the champion. “The atmosphere this weekend has been incredible and to win in the US is always a nice feeling. We had a really good pace and after we had the pitstop it was just the gap to Charles, I think we were very closely matched on the hard tire. Then the safety car came out which made it more entertaining for the fans, I had to push hard today but we made it work. I'm super pleased for the Team, we didn't have a great start to the weekend so we've come far, a big thank you to everyone.”

There’s little to choose between Red Bull and Ferrari at the moment but with Red Bull having brought an extensive upgrade in recent rounds it will be very interesting to see how Ferrari respond starting at the next round in Spain.

Catch all the action LIVE from Spain on Digicel + Channel 309, ESPN Extra!