Max Verstappen declared: "I always feel unbeatable," after crushing Sergio Perez's dreams of topping the Formula 1 championship standings.
The Miami Grand Prix presented a glorious opportunity for the Mexican to do exactly that. He was riding high after a win the previous weekend in Baku and had qualified on pole, while Verstappen was ninth on the grid after failing to set a representative time in Q3.
But the Dutchman was perfect when it mattered. He started on an alternative tyres strategy with a long stint on the harder rubber – on which he absolutely flew – before switching to the mediums to close out the race.
Perez had gone the other way but struggled to switch on his tyres on a surface which improved hugely as the race went on. He did not make enough of a gap to compensate for the fact Verstappen would have fresher tyres at the end and was a sitting duck when the other Red Bull appeared in his mirrors.
"I always feel unbeatable but, sometimes, other people also have a really good day and they can be close to you or match you and be ahead," said Verstappen, clearly satisfied that he had squashed any ideas Perez had about leapfrogging him at the top of the drivers' standings.
He added: "I think what is important is you try and be close to 100% perfect every single time. Yesterday [qualifying] wasn't perfect so, overall, this weekend wasn't perfect. But it's a long season, and I try to always be as close as possible to perfection."
Meanwhile, Perez blamed his failure to win the race on his race strategy which didn't pay off. And he was magnanimous in defeat to his team-mate despite his own disappointment.
He said: "I tried, I gave it all. The first stint was really poor with the graining we had in that initial phase, and that compromised our race a lot. We didn't have too much of a difference on tyres and Max was particularly strong today, so a well deserved win for him.
"The medium initially was really poor, worse than expected. That really compromised our pace. And then I think Max had tremendous pace on the hard tyre and I need to analyse what went wrong today. We simply didn't have the pace."
