Max Verstappen executed his Miami GP strategy to perfection to crush Sergio Perez's dreams of leading the championship.
It meant that, for the first time in almost four decades, a Formula 1 driver won a race from ninth on the grid. The legendary Niki Lauda was the last to do it, at Dijon in 1984. But Verstappen is no stranger to making history.
On a different strategy to Perez, Verstappen made sure he was on faster rubber at the end to reel in and move past the Mexican to avoid being leapfrogged in the standings. Fernando Alonso completed the podium with a trademark expert drive, while George Russell came home fourth to score good points for Mercedes.
It was tough going at the start for Lewis Hamilton, who started 13th after a poor qualifying, but he made good late progress to finish sixth. Perez got away well off the line at the start and wasted little time in stretching out a decent lead over Alonso.
Verstappen briefly lost a place on the first lap but quickly recovered to ninth before he swiftly began to make progress up the order on his hard tyres. Hamilton would have hoped to have made progress himself, but struggled to do so.
Instead, he said over the radio: "I don't think we're going to last this race," as he complained about a problem he could feel on his Mercedes.
Meanwhile, Verstappen showed he meant business by setting the fastest lap of the race on the slower hard compound, and was in the lead by lap 21 when Perez came into the pits to change his mediums to match the same rubber his team-mate was using.
He was hoping it would be a more successful pit stop than Carlos Sainz had. The Spaniard was called in by Ferrari in a bid to undercut Alonso, but in his haste he sped in the pit lane and was slapped with a five-second time penalty.
Alonso stopped six laps later to benefit from fresher rubber in the final part of the race, and came out of the pits ahead of the Ferrari to make himself favourite for the podium.
And, also in the battle for points, Russell was allowed past by Hamilton after the younger Brit pitted so he could hunt down Esteban Ocon, prompting a "thank you" over the radio directed at the seven-time champ.
But it was all about a potentially titanic battle for the win which was shaping up nicely.
Verstappen had the lead but needed to pit and came back out behind Perez.
The Mexican could not hold off his team-mate on newer, faster tyres and so Verstappen slightly extended his championship advantage.
