Tag Archives: Miami Grand Prix

2024 F1 Grand Prix of Miami — Results & aftermath

McLaren’s Norris earns maiden win in Miami with brilliant drive & a little luck; Verstappen relegated to rare P2 in fair fight, Leclerc P3 for Ferrari

McLaren’s Lando Norris drove the race of his life at the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday, using his ever improving skills as a driver, the new upgrades on his MCL38 chassis and little bit of Safety Car luck to earn his maiden win in Formula 1 in spectacular fashion. Having knocked on the door with seven podiums over the course of a F1 career that began in the middle of the 2018 season, the 24-year-old Briton finally kicked down that barrier to take the top step of the podium ahead of the usually imperious Red Bull of Max Verstappen by an impressive 7.612 seconds. After coming a cropper on the first lap of Saturday’s Sprint race, Norris excelled in Sunday’s GP, even though he started from back in P5 on the grid. With Verstappen looking fully in control and en route to another easy win midway through this 57-lap contest, and teammate Oscar Piastri actually seeming the quicker car in the early going, Norris made his own luck by running an extra-long first stint on his initial Medium Pirelli tires. While some contenders pitted under a brief Virtual Safety Car deployed on Lap 23 to retrieve a loose bollard from the chicane that Verstappen had knocked onto the track a few laps earlier, including Max himself, the two McLarens were not in position to take the risk of the VSC ending while in the pits and stayed out. It proved to be a prescient decision.

When the action resumed at the end of that lap, Verstappen had been shuffled back to P4, with Piastri now in the lead, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in P2 and Norris in third. Piastri and Sainz then pitted under green flag conditions on Lap 28, both going from Mediums to Hards under the favored one-stop strategy, with Norris then inheriting the lead and presumably attempting a one-lap overcut strategy. But that plan paid even bigger dividends when the Haas of Kevin Magnussen came together with the Williams of local boy Logan Sargeant on the very same lap, spinning Sargent backwards into the barriers and disabling his car. A Safety Car to retrieve the stricken Williams was quickly deployed on Lap 29, enabling Norris to duck into the pits for the cheap stop under the full course yellow a lap later. Norris then reemerged still in the lead, setting up a showdown for the victory with Verstappen when the SC ended in the latter part of Lap 32. The pace in the McLaren being up to the challenge, Norris held off Verstappen with aplomb at the rolling the restart and then, to the capacity crowd’s astonishment, began pulling away from the flying Dutchman. With the tension and anticipation of something truly special unfolding as the laps wound down, Norris kept pulling away from Verstappen, who for once could do nothing to get back up to Norris and make a real challenge. Perhaps the Red Bull’s front wing was damaged from hitting that bollard or perhaps the McLaren in Norris’s hands truly had the legs on the RB20 on this day — or maybe little of both. But when the checkers flew it was an ecstatic Norris with that all important first Formula 1 victory to put McLaren back in the winners circle for the first time since 2021 and relegate the runaway championship favorite Verstappen to a wholly unaccustomed P2.

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2024 F1 Grand Prix of Miami — Qualifying results

Verstappen masters Miami for third consecutive pole there, sixth straight to open season; Leclerc closest contender in P2, Ferrari teammate Sainz P3, as Scuderia split Perez

Fresh off a Sprint win earlier on Saturday, Red Bull’s peerless Max Verstappen continued his mastery of the Miami International Autodrome by taking his third consecutive pole there for Sunday”s Grand Prix. In the Miami GP’s three years of existence, Verstappen has dominated the tricky and perilous temporary street circuit created from the roads surrounding the NFL Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium. While other drivers white knuckled it through the course’s most narrow and technical switchback turns, the supremely confident Verstappen was left to wonder what all the fuss was about en route to setting his sixth pole on the trot to start what is shaping up to be a historically dominant 2024 campaign.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was his closest pursuer for one-lap pace despite suffering an ignominious spin-and-stall in Friday’s only practice, the rapidly improving Prancing Horse setting the second fastest time in the Monegasque’s hands. Teammate Carlos Sainz was third quickest on the day, relegating the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez to P4 on the grid and giving hope to the Scuderia faithful for a potential double podium finish come race day. McLaren ran decently while trying to master their new upgrades, with Lando Norris, who has the full new package qualifying P5 and teammate Oscar Piastri, who only has the partial kit, slotting in at P6.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Miami GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:27.689 1:27.566 1:27.241 18
2 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:28.081 1:27.533 1:27.382 21
3 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:27.937 1:27.941 1:27.455 21
4 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:27.772 1:27.839 1:27.460 18
5 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:27.913 1:27.871 1:27.594 21
6 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:28.032 1:27.721 1:27.675 19
7 63 George Russell MERCEDES 1:28.159 1:28.095 1:28.067 21
8 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:28.167 1:27.697 1:28.107 21
9 27 Nico Hulkenberg HAAS FERRARI 1:28.383 1:28.200 1:28.146 21
10 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB HONDA RBPT 1:28.324 1:28.167 1:28.192 21

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Sunday’s race airs live on ABC beginning at 4PM Eastern here in the States. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!.

2023 F1 Grand Prix of Miami — Results & aftermath

Peerless Verstappen recovers from P9 start to take dominant victory in Miami, relegates Red Bull teammate Perez to P2; Alonso earns fourth podium out of five races with solid P3

Red Bull’s peerless ace Max Verstappen recovered from an ill-timed Red Flag during Saturday Qualifying that relegated him to a P9 start for the Miami Grand Prix all the way back to a surprisingly easy victory on Sunday. On a track that had been difficult to pass on in its debut last year, 2023’s race was a very different affair, featuring a passel of passes and not only by Verstappen. But, once again, it was the Red Bull in the Dutchman’s hands that proved an irresistible force, as Verstappen carved his way through the midfield during the first third of the GP like a hot knife through better. If this were IMSA, the RB19 would surely be given a balance of performance weight penalty, such was the seeming ease of its multiple overtakes on reasonably proficient cars, including, eventually, his teammate. Verstappen and his strategists also made the wise decision to start on the Hard Pirelli tires from his disadvantaged position on the grid, while the others in the top 10 started on the quicker but shorter-lived Mediums. In any event, after biding his time and staying out of trouble on the opening lap, Verstappen essentially proved the distinction between Hard and Medium tires to be meaningless for him, first making easy work of Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas on Lap 2 for P8 and then nabbing two places by passing the Haas of Kevin Magnussen and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc while they were preoccupied dueling each other on Lap 4 to vault up to P6 in the relative blink of an eye. By this point it was clear that not only was Verstappen going to be able to get up and challenge his race leading teammate Perez by the last stanza of the race but it was actually Perez who was likely to be the hunted rather than the hunter, even on one of the Mexican’s favored street courses.

While Perez had successfully gotten out of DRS range of the very fleet P2 Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, with Alonso likewise being able to keep the P3 Ferrari of Carlos Sainz at bay in the early going, he was unable to build a gap over his hard charging Red Bull teammate further behind. On Lap 9, Verstappen made easy work of Mercedes’ George Russell for P5 and on the next lap he rounded up the out-of-position Alpine of Pierre Gasly for P4 at the same point in Turn 17, the last real corner at the Miami International Autodrome and a section that turned into a prime overtaking area on Sunday. Just a few laps later, Verstappen was on the back of Sainz’s gearbox and he then flew by the Spaniard for P3 midway through Lap 14, utilizing Turn 11 with aplomb this time and then duplicating the feat on Alonso on the subsequent lap. So, by Lap 15 of the 57-lap contest, Verstappen had already erased the memories of his qualifying disappointment and made up an astounding eight positions. With that, he set about closing down his race leading teammate just up the road.

Before any early intra-team dramas could bloom on track, the Red Bull pit wall called in Perez on Lap 20 to make the switch off his aging Medium tires and onto the Hards, which he would be forced to run for the remainder the contest due to the preferred (and likely only feasible) one-stop strategy. That handed the lead to Verstappen and the Dutchman now concentrated on pumping in solid laps on his Hards while running in clean air to bank time for his own inevitable pit stop. That he did in seemingly effortless fashion, running all the way to Lap 46 before diving to the pits for fresh rubber and a new set of Pirelli Mediums with which to close out the race. While the normally top notch Red Bull pit crew was slightly slow by about a second and Verstappen came out behind Perez once again, it was quickly all too clear that Perez on aging, 25-lap old Hards was no match for Verstappen on fresh Mediums. The Flying Dutchman stamped his dominance on yet another race and demoralized yet another teammate, cruising by the game but helpless Perez just a few revolutions of the circuit later on Lap 48, making the decisive move while the two ran side by side down into Turn 1. From there, Verstappen just set off into the distance, setting the race’s fastest lap for the extra championship point en route to the victory five seconds ahead of Perez. It was a remarkable exhibition in Miami and a real statement of dominance by the two-time and reigning World Champion after a disappointing weekend in Baku, setting things up nicely for a rematch between the only two genuine contenders this season two weeks hence at Imola.

Top 10 finishers of the Miami GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 57 1:27:38.241 26
2 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 57 +5.384s 18
3 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 57 +26.305s 15
4 63 George Russell MERCEDES 57 +33.229s 12
5 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 57 +42.511s 10
6 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 57 +51.249s 8
7 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 57 +52.988s 6
8 10 Pierre Gasly ALPINE RENAULT 57 +55.670s 4
9 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 57 +58.123s 2
10 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 57 +62.945s 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in a fortnight’s time on May 21st, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix from the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, aka Imola, just a little southeast of Bologna. Bring your appetite for more wheel to wheel action between the Red Bull championship rivals and teammates, with Perez aiming to reassert his title hopes and Verstappen looking to hand out another beatdown. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2023 F1 Grand Prix of Miami — Qualifying results

Perez takes pole on Miami as late Leclerc spin brings out Red Flag to scramble grid; Alonso P2, Sainz P3; Verstappen P9 after failing to set Q3 time

Saturday Qualifying for this year’s Miami Grand Prix turned unpredictable in the dying moments, as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc lost it late in Q3 while trying to improve his position, spinning his Prancing Horse off the circuit entering Turn 17. That brought out a Red Flag for the stricken Ferrari and with under two minutes remaining in the final quali session, ended Q3. It also froze all the drivers in their prior positions with no more chance of improvement. For Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, that meant the fatstest lap of the session and pole for Sunday’s race. But it also doomed  his teammate and championship rival Max Verstappen to an uncharacteristic P9. The Dutchman aborted his first lap of the final session and then was never able to set another time afterwards due to Leclerc’s mishap. The very tight Miami International Autodrome is a hard place to make passes so Verstappen will have his work cut for him, though if any current F1 driver can recover from that disadvantage, it’s him. Conversely, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso benefitted from the abbreviated quali session and secured P2 alongside Perez on the front row. With the Spaniard’s run of excellent form to start 2023 and a very completive car, P2 may well be where he finishes the race.

Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz also reaped the benefits of having already banked a solid fast lap earlier in the session and will start P3, while Leclerc obviously did not improve on his standing P7 time. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen was ecstatic to find himself starting P4 after a really solid day for the Danish veteran. And Alpine had a much needed good result with both cars getting through to Q3 and Pierre Gasly qualifying up in P5 and Esteban Ocon in P8.  On the other hand, Mercedes had a torrid time of it in the Miami heat with George Russell only able to manage a time good enough for P6 and teammate Lewis Hamilton unceremoniously knocked out in Q2. The seven-time World Champ will start way back in P13, his first-ever start outside the top 6 while on American soil. Ala Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas was P10 and did not leave the pits at all in that fateful final session.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Miami GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:27.713 1:27.328 1:26.841 20
2 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 1:28.179 1:27.097 1:27.202 19
3 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:27.686 1:27.148 1:27.349 18
4 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 1:27.809 1:27.673 1:27.767 19
5 10 Pierre Gasly ALPINE RENAULT 1:28.061 1:27.612 1:27.786 20
6 63 George Russell MERCEDES 1:28.086 1:27.743 1:27.804 20
7 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:27.713 1:26.964 1:27.861 19
8 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 1:27.872 1:27.444 1:27.935 20
9 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:27.363 1:26.814 DNF 15
10 77 Valtteri Bottas ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 1:27.864 1:27.564 DNS 15

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ABC beginning at 3:30 PM Eastern here in the States. With a rather epically jumbled grid and Vertsappen forced to make up a ton of positions on a notoriously difficult to overtake circuit, it should be a wild ride in the Sunshine State. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2022 F1 Grand Prix of Miami — Results & aftermath

Red Bull’s Verstappen gets ahead early, survives late Safety Car to win in Miami; Ferrari consoled by Leclerc & Sainz P2, P3 finish

After muffing his challenge for pole during Saturday qualifying, Red Bull’s peerless Max Verstappen resolved to fight his way to the front on Sunday at the inaugural Grand Prix of Miami. Starting from P3 on the grid behind the two Ferraris of pole-sitter Charles Leclerc and his stablemate Carlos Sainz, Verstappen got away swiftly when the lights went out to start the race on this hot South Florida day, making quick work of Sainz going into Turn 1 on the opening lap and grabbing P2. Next, the Dutchman set his sights on Leclerc, his key rival this year, and the Red Bull showed that it had the legs on the Ferrari, at least on this temporary street circuit with not only tight and twisty corners and esses but also some long, high speed straights. By Lap 8, Verstappen’s RB18 was right on the gearbox of the Monegasque’s F1-75 and on Lap 9 Verstappen was able to pass the Prancing Horse easily with a probably too powerful DRS assist steaming by down the main straight to take the lead.

The first round of pit stops failed to change the equation and Verstappen swanned off into the distance, seemingly on his way to an easy victory. But on Lap 41 of this 57-lap contest AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, running off the pace after earlier contact, collided with the fast-running McLaren of Lando Norris, sending Norris’s car into a spin and crash that littered the track with debris and knocked the young Englishman out of the race. This brought out first a Virtual Safety Car and then the inevitable actual Safety Car since the area of the crash required extensive clean up. It was all Leclerc and Ferrari could have hoped for, as it erased Verstappen’s large lead and bunched the field up again behind the Safety Car. When the race restarted on Lap 47 Leclerc was able to stick with Verstappen, both of whom were on older Hard tires dating back to their first pit stops, and then hound the Dutch wunderkind for the next few laps. The Ferrari man was even within DRS range for a few laps but still could not execute the overtake, such was the all around strength of the Red Bull. With the last life of his tires burned off in that final frantic chase, Leclerc faded away over the last few laps and Verstappen came home the victor nearly four-seconds ahead of P2 Leclerc. To make matters even sweeter, Max also got the bonus point for the race’s fastest lap for the maximum 26 available on the day.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

But Ferrari still had to be pleased with not only Leclerc’s solid P2 but also Carlos Sainz ability to hold off the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez and secure a P3 finish. Continue reading →

2022 F1 Grand Prix of Miami — Qualifying results

Leclerc takes pole, Sainz P2 for Ferrari front row lockout at inaugural Miami GP; Verstappen fumbles late effort, settles for P3

The first-ever qualifying for the first-ever Miami Grand Prix and Round 5 of the F1 Championship  didn’t disappoint. Under the hot Florida sun on the Miami International Autodrome, temporarily laid out around the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium, drivers faced a steep learning curve on this brand new, tight and twisty 5.412 kilometer street circuit where one false move might put them into the foreboding and at times claustrophobic walls. Team Ferrari earned the highest grades this Saturday, with Charles Leclerc wringing the neck of his skittish Prancing Horse to take pole and teammate Carlos Sainz backing him up in P2. Leclerc benefitted not only from his own steady efforts at mastering this virgin circuit but also from his key championship rival’s untimely Q3 error. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, coming off a dominant race win two weeks ago in Emilia-Romagna, uncharacteristically muffed his final quali effort when he ran off the circuit with snap oversteer and was unable to mount another challenge to the day’s Ferrari dominance as time expired. Verstappen will start P3 on a track where overtaking offline looks to be nigh impossible. So the Dutch reigning world champ will be hoping for not only solid strategy form his team to leapfrog the two Ferraris ahead in the pits but also perhaps some further unforced errors by the Scuderia duo. With Sainz having not completed the first lap in the last two races and Leclerc blowing a certain P3 by overdriving and binning it into the wall at Imola last race, team Ferrari will be looking for their talented but mistake prone duo to perhaps dial it back a notch and drive a clean contest come Sunday to take the maximum possible points.

Verstappen’s Red Bull wingman Sergio Perez set a final fast lap good enough to line up alongside his team leader on the second row in P4. Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas did yeoman’s work after he crashed out in Free Practice 1 on Friday, recovering all the way to set an excellent P5 time. That he bested his old Mercedes mate Lewis Hamilton by a position must have been extra pleasing. That said, Hamilton was probably satisfied to haul his twitchy Silver Arrow up to P6 on the grid, as his junior teammate George Russell struggled mightily with severe porpoising, that 2022 Mercedes bugaboo, and was unceremoniously bounced out in Q2. Russell will start way back in P12 and will be looking for strategic help and perhaps some inclement weather to fight his way forward on Sunday. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda acquitted themselves well in Miami, qualifying P7 and P9 respectively, while Lando Norris of McLaren and Lance Stroll of Aston Martin were their lone teams’ representatives to make it into Q3, with Norris willing himself up to P8 and Stroll rounding out the front of the grid in P10.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Miami GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:29.474 1:29.130 1:28.796 25
2 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:30.079 1:29.729 1:28.986 26
3 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING RBPT 1:29.836 1:29.202 1:28.991 18
4 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING RBPT 1:30.055 1:29.673 1:29.036 21
5 77 Valtteri Bottas ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 1:30.845 1:29.751 1:29.475 20
6 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:30.388 1:29.797 1:29.625 21
7 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI RBPT 1:30.779 1:30.128 1:29.690 22
8 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:30.761 1:29.634 1:29.750 22
9 22 Yuki Tsunoda ALPHATAURI RBPT 1:30.485 1:30.031 1:29.932 21
10 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 1:30.441 1:29.996 1:30.676 21

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live beginning at 3:30 PM Eastern on ABC here in the States. Look for a real street fight in Miami with potential for several Safety Cars/Red Flags to shake up the order. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!