Max Verstappen has the all-important pole position for the Miami Grand Prix and he showed last time out the lengths he will go to protect the advantage of running in clean air.
Will he be able to protect that advantage again? And might more unpredictable Miami weather throw a spanner in the works for everyone?
Here’s the key data for the Miami Grand Prix.
Weather
Rain played havoc with Saturday’s sprint race and there’s a decent chance F1 will encounter more on Sunday. At the time of writing it’s impossible to be certain when or if any rain will fall, but if it does it is likely to be as intense as the shower which led the sprint race to be postponed by half an hour.
Local forecasts indicate a risk of thunderstorms in the hours leading up to and during the race. However the likelihood any of these might hit the area is around 40-50%. Teams will be eyeing their radars warily and sending staff members up the road to monitor for changes in the conditions.
What they do with that information may not always seem logical, however. As last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix showed, if a track is wet and likely to get wetter, pitting to swap intermediate tyres for wet weather tyres or fresh intermediates puts drivers at risk if the race is red-flagged, and those who stayed out and gained track position are able to change tyres without pitting. That’s just one of many strategic scenarios which could play out tomorrow.
Start
We’ve already had one standing start in Miami this weekend and it did not go well for pole-winner Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the sprint race. Oscar Piastri beat him off the line, asserted his right to the corner and forced the Mercedes wide, dropping him to fourth place.
As the run to turn one is fairly short and the corner itself is narrow, the driver who starts second has a good opportunity to capitalise on a decent start. Being forced wide at turn one is a significant disadvantage, but as Verstappen showed in Jeddah, he will have planned for this.
Distance from pole position to first braking zone. Source: Mercedes
Verstappen also started from pole position at last year’s grand prix. On that occasion Leclerc alongside got away poorly. However Sergio Perez then arrived far too quickly at turn one, almost hit Verstappen, forced Carlos Sainz Jnr wide in the other Ferrari and allowed Leclerc to regain the second place he had lost.
Start, Miami International Autodrome, 2024
Strategy
Pirelli has selected compounds one stage softer than those it brought 12 months ago. Last year most drivers started on the medium compound, which is this year’s hard:
Pirelli has not yet confirmed how many sets of each compound are available to the drivers. That information will be added here once it is available.
Last year most drivers ran single-stop strategies, switching from the medium tyres to the hards. Expect to see the same this year despite the use of softer compounds, though that will also depend on whether it rains and whether the Safety Car is deployed. A pit stop costs around 20 seconds in dry conditions.
One of the three DRS zones on the Miami International Autodrome has been extended this year. Drivers can open their rear wings 75 metres earlier on the approach to turn 11.
Lawson said he was entitled to room; the stewards disagreed
This is one of the better spots for overtaking on the track. There has already been one contentious incident at the corner which indicates how stewards will judge whether a driver has successfully completed a pass there.
Liam Lawson was given a five-second time penalty after colliding with Fernando Alonso there during the sprint race. The stewards ruled he had not got far enough alongside the Aston Martin to be entitled to room on the outside of turn 11.
“Although being able to pull fully alongside, the front axle of car 30 [Lawson] was not ahead of the front axle of car 14 at the apex as required per the Driving Standards Guidelines,” they noted. “Therefore car 30 was not entitled to be given room at the exit. Due to the layout of the track, the car which has the right to the racing line in turn 11 also has the right to the racing line in turn 12.”
Lawson was given a penalty point for the incident. He is now on a total of six and halfway towards an automatic one-race ban. The only driver with more penalty points is Verstappen, on eight:
Although Horner indicated Verstappen is running a higher downforce level than some of his rivals, there is little indication that it has affected his straight-line speed too badly. However he may have to contend with rivals attacking behind him, and the six drivers immediately behind him on the grid have all taken fresh Mercedes power units this weekend.
Safety Cars
Not only was the Safety Car deployed in the last two races at this track – yesterday’s sprint race and last year’s grand prix – on both occasions it played into Lando Norris’s hands.
But dry races at this track can be processional and uneventful. The 2023 race ran without interruption.
Although the Safety Car did appear in 2022 Norris wasn’t able to benefit from it because he caused it, by crashing out at turn eight with Pierre Gasly.
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