The inaugural Miami GP ended with the third win in 2022 for reigning champion Max Verstappen and the two Ferrari drivers completing the podium.

A moment that could have been crucial in the race was the racing incident happened during Lap 40 between Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly, who had been previously touched by Fernando Alonso and went on to hit the British driver while returning on track.

In that occasion, a number of drivers running on hards like George Russell, took advantage of the opportunity given by the Safety Car to pit. Race leader Verstappen couldn't have taken up ton the occasion as he was already too far from the pit entry.

However, both Ferrari drivers could have potentially switched their worn tyres for their last fresh set available of hards. Charles Leclerc almost caught up with Verstappen anyways, but had to be statistifed with P2.

Red Bull's Team Principal Christian Horner was surprised by Ferrari's decision when speaking to MotorLAT and other media outlets after the race:

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

"We're grateful for that, because I think if they did put soft tyres on, that would have been a P3 today," he concluded.

Ferrari's Team Principal Mattia Binotto disagrees with him. In the post-race press conference, he explained that Sainz and Leclerc could have switched only to hard tyres, which wouldn't have been as performant as the ones they were using already. 

"We believed that in terms of warm-up, a used tyre would have been stronger than a new one."

"We would have suffered more warm up issues with a new hard, which were the ones that we had available in the garage," he added.

Binotto was partially right, as Leclerc had a chance to battle with Verstappen at the restart with much more ease, but it wasn't enough for the race win.

"So we decided to stay out because we believed that was the best chance for us to have a good warm up and attack in the first laps, which is what happened."

"I think that the best opportunity for Charles had been just on the very first lap after the safety car, and certainly he was close at that stage."

It was the best strategy for Sainz as well, who ultimately managed to get his third podium of the campaign.

"And for Carlos as well, [it helped] to try to defend on Checo with the new medium."

The Spanish driver agrees with the call made by his team, citing as reason the fact that all the other options wouldn't have been performant enough to get to the end of the race.

"I knew Checo was going to pit because he had a new medium. Our alternative was a used soft, or a new hard, which for me, both of them were not good enough for 10/12 laps."

"I think it was the right call because in the end we managed to keep him behind. But it was tight, He had all everything, all the cards to actually pass me. I'm a bit surprised that we stayed ahead because it was a tight, tight battle," he recalled.