Sunday's inaugural Miami Grand Prix saw Red Bull's Max Verstappen take advantage of his significant straight line speed advantage to claim his third win of the season ahead of championship leader Charles Leclerc. On the other side of the garage, Sergio Perez managed a P4 finish despite a significant loss of power due to sensor issues. 

Speaking after the race, team Principal Christian Horner was quick to praise both of his driver's performances. 

"[Verstappen] was fantastic today and under pressure obviously, having lost out on track time on Friday," Horner said. "Especially at a new circuit I think that hurt us in qualifying but in the race there was several key moments. 

"One of them was the start, then looking after the tyres, putting Charles [Leclerc] under pressure, making that pass and then really controlling the race until a safety car."

Horner did admit however, that Ferrari could have put Verstappen's win under pressure had they made the decision to make a late pit stop under safety car. 

"Ferrari let us off the hook slightly when it went from a virtual safety car to a full safety car. Max [Verstappen] had already passed the pit entry whereas Ferrari would have had a free stop and they didn't take it with either of their cars. 

"We're grateful for that because I think if they had put soft tyres on, that would have been a P3 [for Verstappen] today."

When how closely he believes Leclerc's Ferrari matches the Red Bull he admits the two cars are closely matched on pace while they extract their pace in different areas of the lap. 

"I think they are very closely matched," he stated. "I think it's just trying to piece together the best race that you can and strategically we were very different to Ferrari. 

"They had very high downforce, we were very low downforce. The setup worked for us today."

Horner continued to discuss the good relationship and high level of respect between Max Verstappen and his rival Charles Leclerc. 

"There's been some great racing. You can see there's a great respect between Charles and Max. They're enjoying racing and you can see that."

Speaking on Sergio Perez's race, Horner admits the engine sensor issues which plagued the Mexican during the race cost him a potential podium. 

"He had an issue with a sensor on one of the cylinders," he explained. "So he lost a lot of time. The guys managed to move the sensors around but he was down probably twenty kilowatts in power as a result. 

"Even with the advantage of the new tyre he had, he was probably half a second off what the car was capable of in straight line speed. I think without that, he would have probably even been P2 today."

He continued to deny he is worried about the cars apparent fragility, stating he doesn't believe it is fragile despite the teams recent run of failures. 

"I don't think the car is particularly fragile, I think it's just been niggly things that you would normally see in preseason testing that have only reared their head as we've got into the season. That's a bit frustrating. 

"We're working closely with HRC and they're giving us great support so I think we'll get those ironed out."