According to Wolff, Verstappen and the McLarens outperform Mercedes in this area

According to Wolff, managing the tires could be what hurts the Mercedes drivers during long runs. Mercedes is always well-positioned in the qualifying, but during the race, sometimes less so. Wolff sees it too. "It is simply that we have a really fast car, I believe, on a single lap or on a few laps, absolutely where it can be, but we're just not good with the tyres over an extended run. And McLaren shows how it's being done."

"To a degree, I think that Red Bull with Max, they're managing it better, but also tricky performances, and we are, I would say, we're solid in what we're doing, but they are definitely doing an excellent job by being able to go fast around the corners without overheating them. So this is what we need to look out for and engineer our way out of the top." Wolff told GPBlog and others after the Miami Grand Prix.

Even though Verstappen's tyre management could be 'to a degree' better than Mercedes', the Mercedes driver remained ahead of the Dutchman during the race. Verstappen stayed within five seconds of Russell in order to climb to P3 in the case of a possible penalty for the Englishman, but this penalty never came, despite a protest from Red Bull at the FIA.