Miami race weekend

Now that was an exciting weekend of racing in Miami.

A driver parade lap to stir the heart of the little child in all of us. It was done in motorised Lego cars. These cars, which are almost to scale replicas of the existing F1 cars, are built from nearly 400 000 Lego bricks. Each team had a car that was an amazing copy of their livery right down to the sponsor logos and authentic Pirelli tyres. The major deviance from the genuine F1 cars is that there was space for both team drivers to be seated, upright not supine, in each car. What a sight.

FP1

Free practice one, the only one, told us very little about the performance of the cars except that McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull were quick. The surprise was that Williams was also in that mix with both cars. Not knowing fuel loads and engine modes, not much could be extrapolated from the session.

Sprint Qualifying

Qualifying for the sprint race threw up a surprise as Kimi Antonelli rewrote the record book by becoming the youngest driver to win a qualifying session. Behind him were the two McLarens then Max Verstappen (Red Bull). George Russell (Mercedes) was fifth the Ferraris sixth and seventh with Alex Albon (Williams) eighth, the so called best of the rest.

Sprint race

Before the pitlane opened for the drivers to go to the grid, so did the sky to torrential rain. So much for saying that Miami is in the Sunshine State, it sure did not look like it.

Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) did not make it to the grid. He was on intermediate rain tyres (maybe it should have been full wets) and crashed into the walls. His race was over before he could start.

The formation lap took place behind the safety car. Instead of aligning back on the grid the dreaded red flag came out and the safety car leads the cars into the pit lane. Confusion. There was no signal from race control as to what was happening other than that red flag. The rain had stopped but visibility was lacking due to the spray lifted by the cars. After about half an hour the safety car led the cars around to the grid and they took up their positions for a normal standing start. The going round the circuit to the grid consumed 1 of the race laps so instead of 19 racing laps there would only be 18 racing laps in this sprint race.

Oscar Piastri had a slightly faster start than Kimi Antonelli. This gave Oscar a slight lead into the first corner. Kimi Antonelli in his determination not to lose position ran wide. This dropped Kimi Antonelli down to fifth. A wiser manoeuvre would have been to cede the corner to Oscar and settled into second place. But, hello, Kimi Antonelli is only 18 years old, he will learn.

With the circuit surface drying out by lap 10 of the 18, everyone was debating if slick tyres could be used. Difficult computation, could slick tyres be used to makeup the 20 second pit stop time? On lap 11 Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) pits for medium tyres. His pace immediately answers the question. It is a yes. The slicks tyres can make up the pit stop time and more in the remaining laps.

On lap 14/18 Oscar Piastri pits from the lead for medium tyres. Lando Norris stays out in the lead until the next lap. As Lando pits Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) tangles with Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) and ends up in the wall. The safety car is deployed, and all the cars slow for this. At the same time Lando comes out of the pits and is in the lead of the race. Had the safety car not been sent out Oscar would have won the sprint. Incredibly lucky for Lando. Oscar’s considered response was “I am not going to buy lottery tickets in Miami”

How the sprint race finished, with the top eight supposed points position is-

How points would have been awarded without penalties

But there were penalties.

Max Verstappen received a ten second penalty for an unsafe release. He left his pit box on a green light right into the path of Kimi Antonelli whose reflex reaction was superb to swerve away. Max lost some of his front wing and Kimi was forced to go around for another lap before pitting for his change to slicks. Red Bull must look at their pit stop procedures as this is not the first problem they have had with them this season.

Alex Albon was given a five second penalty for speeding (not sufficiently slowing down) behind the safety car.

Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) was also given a five second penalty for causing a crash with Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), who was forced to retire. Without this penalty Liam would have scored his first point this season.

How the actual points were awarded after the penalties were applied-

Points awarded after penalties

GP QUALIFYING

Qualifying for the Grand Prix was very exciting. Extrapolating from the data between the Q3 times of the Sprint qualifying and the GP qualifying it appeared that the circuit had improved on average by around 0.2 seconds.

Comparison of GP and Sprint race qualifying times

How did Max Verstappen extract a half second extra between his Sprint qualifying and the GP qualifying? It really looked like the perfect lap and was a new lap record.

With the top 10 drivers in six different teams all within 1 second, we are seeing that convergence of performance that coming to the end of a regulation period brings. Graphically the top ten qualifying performances for the Miami GP race-

TOP 10 GP QUALIFIERS

The Miami GP Race

In the morning before the race it rained heavily but fortunately stopped and for the start of the race the circuit was mostly dry but of course green.

After the formation lap the lights duly went off and the race began. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) locked up slightly into the first corner and Lando Norris (McLaren) got alongside. Lando then ran wide and recovered to sixth place. Jack Doohan (Alpine) tangled with Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) the result of which Jack had a puncture and did not make it back to the pits and stopped at turn 14. A Virtual Safety Car (VSC) was invoked to recover the Alpine car.

Under the reduced speed of the VSC the order of the leading drivers was Max Verstappen, Kimi Antonelli, Oscar Piastri, George Russell, Alex Albon and Lando Norris.

Rather than continue with a lot of words to explain the race as it unfolded, here is a lap chart which graphically displays it-

MIAMI GP LAP CHART

What is not shown is the Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris and George Russell pitstops. These happened on lap 29 when a VSC was invoked. The VSC was called for due to Oliver Bearman (Haas) stopping on the circuit with mechanical problems. All three had sufficient gaps to the cars behind them that they did not lose any places.

The McLaren cars have an unassailable advantage, besides being the fastest, that is in the longevity of their Pirelli tyres. They can go further without degraded performance than their competitors.

George Russell (Mercedes) started on the hard tyre and used them very well. Though it was Kimi Antonelli who had the 1 lap performances this race weekend, George raced well to get his fourth podium finish in 2025.

The final results for the drivers in the Miami GP was-

MIAMI GP RESULTS

Championship Positions

After the Miami weekend the World Driver’s Championship looks like this-

WDC POINTS AFTER MIAMI

Graphically the top ten drivers

2025 WDC POINTS AFTER MIAMI GP

After the Miami weekend the World Constructors’ Championship points are-

WCC POINTS AFTER MIAMI

And graphically-

WCC POINTS AFTER MIAMI GP

Since the Miami weekend

Since the weekend there have been two major announcements by the BWT Alpine Formula One Team. One of them a total surprise and quite shocking, the other has been rumoured about for some time.

The totally unexpected announcement was the resignation of Oliver Oakes as team principal. Oliver was only appointed to this post in August last year. Flavio Briatore, who once carried a lifetime ban from participating in any FIA sanctioned sport, will become the acting team principle.

The next day the rumour that Jack Doohan would be replaced by Franco Colapinto was confirmed. The announcement only specified that the replacement would be applicable for the next five races before a re-evaluation.

Next race

The AWS Made in Italy Emilia Romagna GP is next on May 16 to 18.