Hi! We are back on circuit, and in the United States for the first time this season, in Miami, Florida.
Before we get to racing weekend itself, Sir Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes team made a pit-stop in New York City doing some promotion for one of his sponsors and interviews, He also disobeyed the NYC mayor, as you can see/hear in the brief video below:
Full disclosure: ESPN/ABC is only carrying the GP on Sunday, so any pre-Grand Prix stuff written here I've gotten from online videos. Update- I was able to catch GP Qualifying ! Also it's a home race for Williams Logan Sargent, who grew up in Ft. Lauderdale. And there are those cute new Ferrari blue outfits and blue trim on the car (deep breath), instead of the traditional Ferrari red uniforms (deep breaths!).
Team/Driver reminder time pic:
P1 (Practice One). Just one hour to get the cars and tyres warmed up and to get to know the track here in Miami, and outside of tyres overheating, and some drivers, including Red Bull's Max Verstappen bumped off a couple of curbs, had a pretty unremarkable practice...unless you name was Charles LeClerc of Ferrari. LeClerc had a spinout halfway thru that by the end of his spinout, his car was facing the wrong direction- between the two walls of the overpass above....yep, red flag time. No damage to the car, but a very awkward way to be removed from a race. Top three were Verstappen, McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz.
Sprint Qualifying: Not diving deep into this part as I did not see it, but in SQ2, both Mercedes cars (with Hamilton bopping the wall on a turn) did NOT make the top 10. Verstappen took pole, with LeClerc and Max's Red Bull teammate, Sergio Perez placed 3rd. The surprise in this Sprint grid was Riccardo of RB (and last race eye candy) placing fourth!
Sprint Race: As I did not see this, just going to post the notables: 19 laps is the Sprint.
On the opening turn of the first lap, Norris gets side-swiped on his rear end, and gets knocked off the track and out of the race when Hamilton charged up and forced Alonso and Stroll to "domino"into Lando's McLaren car. Turns out that Stroll's Aston-Martin took enough damage to be removed from the race as well.
Kevin Magnussen of Haas racking up 10 second penalties, one of them for bumping Hamilton's car, another for an overtake advantage. Hamilton got himself a 10 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, which dropped him from 8th place to 16th in the Sprint Race. Verstappen wins the Sprint, as Max is definitely on a roll, with LaClerc taking 2nd and Max's teammate Evan Perez rounding out the Sprint race podium.
Eye Candy Time: Lando!
A note on how Qualifying works: There are three quick races to determine grid position for the GP on Saturday. First quali the last five drivers are cut, second quali again, last five drivers dropped, and 3rd and final quali determines the top ten on the grid and the ever important pole (1st) position. This also applies to the Sprint Qualis, you will just see me use SQ1 to show the difference.
GP Qualifying: After Max won the Sprint, we shall see if he gets his 5th GP Pole position. Q1 thru Q3 starts with 17 minutes of lapping around the track to try to set the fastest times to form the starting grid for Sunday's Grand Prix. All drivers are on used soft (fastest tyre with best grip) tyres on this 19 turn track...noticing that turns 16 and 18 are the tough ones to navigate. Weather in Miami at 4pm EST is clear, but the track temperature is cool, so drivers are "warming up" their tyres as they complete laps. No big incidents, but a couple of penalties may be applied to a couple of drivers as Q1 bottom 5 (back of grid) are: Bottas- Sauber, Sargent- Williams, Riccardo-RB, Magnussen-Haas and Zhou-Sauber.
Q2 starts with the time on the clock at 15 minutes on this quali, and no incidents, other than a lockup by Albon, which cost him, as the bottom five for Q2 are: Stroll- Aston-Martin, Gasly- Alpine, Ocon- Alpine, Albon- Williams, and Alonso- Aston-Martin. Q3 for P1 (Pole position) and top 10 grid placement. 12 minutes on this final quali. All drivers on new soft tyres except for McLaren's Lando Norris. Norris switches back to soft tyres in the final 3:45 minutes. Both Mercedes drivers switch over to the mediums (which is a bit surprising) for final lap time. That did not work out for Mercedes, as Max has now captured P1/pole position for all seven races this season! We have LeClerc-Ferrari, then Sainz -Ferrari, Perez-Red Bull, Norris and Piastri 5th and 6th for McLaren, Russell and Hamilton 7th and 8th for Mercedes, and Hulkenberg- Haas and Tsunuda- RB rounding out the grid at 9th and 10th.
Your 2024 F1 Miami Grand Prix starting Grid:
1. Max Verstappen 2. Charles Leclerc
3. Carlos Sainz 4. Sergio Perez
5. Lando Norris 6. Oscar Piastri
7. George Russell 8. Lewis Hamilton
9. Nico Hulkenberg 10. Yuki Tsunoda
11. Lance Stroll 12. Pierre Gasly
13. Esteban Ocon14. Alex Albon
15. Fernando Alonso 16. Lance Stroll
17. Logan Sargeant 18. Kevin Magnussen
19. Zhou Guanyu 20. Daniel Ricciardo
It's Miami Grand Prix time! Let's set up the pre-race conditions: Over 275K fans participated in this weekends racing festivities at a very hot Miami racetrack, a race that has 57 laps and 19 turns. Most drivers will start with either the hard or medium tyres as the track itself is not giving the drivers the grip needed, and a lot of sliding and slipping by the drivers.I will drop a spoiler alert here that I learned after the race: Ferrari's Charles LeClerc's water supply was not working during the race, but still completed the race in the hot car of like almost 100 degrees...now THAT is pushing oneself, especially how he finished. I'm sure he got some fluids during his pitstop, one would think!
The three words that were key to this race were: Pace, Patience, and Luck. Another note I will make is that after this race, Haas Kevin Magnussen picked up two more penalty points (you'll read why below), putting him at ten; 12 is the number where you are banned from the following race.
And it's LIGHTS OUT, and on the very first turn, Perez dive-bombs between the two Ferrari's, and almost clipping his Red Bull teammate, Verstappen! The result of that move has Perez now in fifth and McLaren's Oscar Piastri in second, chasing Verstappen after five laps. Lap 13 has some drivers who are in the middle of the pack and were driving on medium tyres switch up to hard tyres as to overcome the slipping and sliding on the track. Top six of Verstappen, Piastri, LeClerc, Sainz and Norris remain the same. McLaren appears to want to have Piastri play defense against the two Ferraris, as unlike Lando, Oscar does NOT have the new upgrades that Lando does (race strategy!). Perez pits on Lap 18, switching to the hard tyres, and the pit stop time was an amazing 1.9 seconds. Also doing a 1.9 pit stop is LeClerc on Lap 20 to get those hard tyre's on! (I almost forgot to put the tyre word in, and ya'll would've had fun with that error!) Lap 22 finds leader Verstappen on turn 15 going wide and taking out a bullard (orange stick/cone thingie), a rare mistake by the Flying Dutchman. Max then makes a 2.2 pit stop, car seems fine after wiping out that bullard (Spoiler alert - we find out post race that car was NOT fine). Piastri in the lead now with Sainz and Norris and Verstappen and LeClerc in the top five after 25 laps. Lap 27, both Piastri and Sainz pit, which gives Norris the lead with Verstappen and LeClerc behind him. Oscar and Carlos come back out on track in 4th and 5th. Lap 29 and we have a safety car out as Williams driver Sargent and Haas driver Magnussen bang tires on turn 2 and both careen into the wall (both drivers okay). This has allowed many drivers to get a "free" pit stop, as the track crew removes the damaged cars for the now DNF (Did Not Finish) driver Sargent. Ten second penalty for causing a collision to Magnussen has been asssessed.
On Lap 40. Sainz clips Piastri's left front wing, forcing Oscar into a pit stop with an ugly exit time of 10.7 seconds, and is now last driver on the grid. Very bad luck for Oscar!
And in an upset, on his 110th Formula One race, Lando Norris WINS the Miami Grand Prix! It is Lando's first win in the Grand Prix, seven seconds ahead of Verstappen. Lando also get the Driver of the Day vote as well! Lando also delivers McLaren their first GP win in a few years and snag those 25 points for first place.
Lando with the first place trophy next to McLaren team Principal, Andrea Stella, and Max and Charles on the podium!
Sorry for the Excel-looking like final grid!
# | DRIVER | TEAM | TIME |
1 | McLaren | ||
2 | Red Bull | + 7.612 | |
3 | Ferrari | + 9.920 | |
4 | Red Bull | + 14.650 | |
5 | Ferrari | + 16.407 | |
6 | Mercedes | + 16.585 | |
7 | VCARB | + 26.185 | |
8 | Mercedes | + 34.789 | |
9 | Aston Martin | + 37.107 | |
10 | Alpine | + 39.746 | |
11 | Haas | + 40.789 | |
12 | Alpine | + 44.958 | |
13 | McLaren | + 49.756 | |
14 | Stake | + 49.979 | |
15 | VCARB | + 50.956 | |
16 | Stake | + 52.356 | |
17 | Aston Martin | + 55.173 | |
18 | Williams | + 76.091 | |
19 | Haas | + 84.683 | |
20 | Williams | DNF |
Lando standing on the first place podium in Miami!
A quick video recap of the race from TSN, but the real joy is the celebration near the end of the video! We have Lando stage-diving into his pit crew, then crowd-surfing with said crew, and the emotional podium ceremony! I, along with many Lando fans, are beyond happy that after years of racing, Lando finally gets that elusive first GP win! :) Hence he gets the eye candy for this race (I have a lot more, and we are only one-fourth thru the season, so expect to see more of Lando! ). :) :)
Two weeks off till our next race at Imola in Italy!
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