MIAMI – In the last few hours Grand Prix MiamiFormula One’s paddles are packed with VIPs, sports stars and celebrities.
Everywhere you look, famous faces emerge from the crowd. Tom Brady crosses the street with Michael Jordan in the Mercedes garage. David Beckham greets the Williams sisters outside Red Bull. Pharrell Williams strolls in the direction of Ferrari. Michael Douglas emerged from Aston Martin. Shawn Mendes stands outside McLaren.
It’s an atmosphere unlike anywhere else in F1.
As each superstar moved around the lawn, they drew selfie hunters and camera crews into their orbits. Swollen supporters jostle for space with sweaty mechanics and impatient engineers as the sport quietly tries to work its way around the show.
As the clock ticks near the lights at 3:30 p.m., the Miami International Autodrome is like the centerpiece of the sports universe. This is F1’s long-awaited Super Bowl moment and is approaching its age in America.
But will the main event ever live up to the hype?
In some ways, it doesn’t matter. Just bringing F1 to Miami in the first place was enough to make the sport profitable, which is increasingly popular in the United States. For most of the weekend, acting on the road seemed like an afterthought.
“The event was spectacular,” said Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff after the race. “The city has been heavily hyped for Formula One throughout the week. The fan support is huge and to be honest, I’ve never been in a race that resonates around the Formula One race. Formula One and be as interested as Miami this time.
“You can’t get past the beach because there’s a lot of people here and that’s good. We should be happy to have such strong support.”
Grand Prix 57 rounds Definitely not a classic, but it’s also not the counter-climax that it could have. After a dramatic collision between Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly in lap 41, a late safety car period briefly rekindled the battle for victory between the championship contenders Max Verstappen and Charles Leclercearlier looked set to settle on lap nine as Verstappen took the lead from the Ferrari driver in Round 1.
Although Leclerc came close to Verstappen, the eventual defending champion played too well on Sunday, giving Red Bull a win and a fastest lap that seems to carry as much PR value as the sport. Asked, however, what winning in Miami meant to him, having ever been a pragmatist, Verstappen cut the fanfare and spoke the truth.
“I mean another 25 or 26 points, right?” he say. “It’s a great location, that’s for sure, but you still get the same score you can get anywhere else.”
Overall, drivers praised the Miami experience. During the four days of the event, they were treated like superstars, and their personalities, amplified in the United States by the Netflix documentary “Drive to Survive,” shined.
“I think it’s a big event,” Carlos Sainz, who finished third, said in the press conference after the race. “It wasn’t easy in the first event to put together such a well-organized venue. There were so many people coming, so many people in the yard… for me the yard was full!”
Verstappen, who sat next to him during the press conference, added: ” [American football] Helmets we’ve got on the podium, we need it in the paddock! “
Concern had been raised about the quality of the track surface as early as Friday’s practice session when the asphalt crumbled and created gravel leaving the track. However, it did not affect the racing that some drivers had feared and on Sunday night there were some in F1 who felt it added to the spectacle.
Wolff added: “Even a broken track at Turn 17, for example, showed a good race. “It’s very hard to brake on Turn 17 and if you’re locked in and out of lane, you’re going to lose a spot or two.
“Obviously riders will say it’s not optimal but for racing and recreation it’s a great thing. It’s almost like a gravel bed that you put in to create the action. interesting. In general, for a race first nine out of ten.”
The consistent draw among drivers after the race was with the tight turn at Turns 14 and 15, which was under a neighboring highway in the second half of the lap.
“I think the song is great” Lewis Hamilton speak. “I think chicane isn’t spectacular but that’s the only weak point.”
Verstappen added: “I think if I were to get into a go-kart it would be a great race to be in, but not in an F1 car like we have now.
“I remember in the four laps I did on Friday, I almost knocked myself out on the first curb and your head just bounced left to right, at least five or six times, but really. the very bad.
“If you’re just going a little too far into the curb, just because the car is too long, too wide, too stiff and super heavy, and a little bit of curb is bad. Honestly, these cars weren’t made. for these cars.”
Sainz, who had a major accident right before the track on Friday, said the cars needed to be slowed down on that stretch but that layout of the track could still be improved.
“I think it’s still necessary because there’s not a lot of space there and you need to be pretty slow approaching Turn 16 because there’s no running track,” Sainz said. “So we need something slow, we need something tight.
“It’s just the nature of the two curves there, how they come together that matters. It’s a new track where you always have to go through these stages and we’ve been in touch with F1, with Ross [Brawn, F1 motorsport director] and his team actually sorted it out and put together a better piece of the circuit. “
Verstappen closes the gap to 19 points
Verstappen’s 26-point win in Miami means he’s cut the gap to Leclerc to 19 in the standings after it came in at 46 just two legs ago. The Red Bull driver has won every race he has completed this year – an impressive but double-edged statistic that also highlights the two costly retirements he suffered while running at second place in Bahrain and Australia.
Gearbox problems, hydraulic problems and brake fires on Verstappen’s car during Friday practice underscored continued concerns about Red Bull’s reliability, while his teammate, Sergio Perez, had a sensor problem on one of his engine’s cylinders during the race that cost him about 27 brake horsepower. After the race, Verstappen put pressure on his Red Bull team to resolve the issues as soon as possible.
“We still have some issues to work out,” Verstappen said. “I mean we’re quick, but you can see, my Friday was terrible, you know, which isn’t great if you want to have a good weekend.
“And also Checo [Perez] had some problems in the race, so we had to get ahead of it, but obviously there’s a lot of potential, we just need to make sure it’s reliable. “
However, in terms of pure track performance, the Red Bull is more suited to the Miami International Circuit than Ferrari. Long straights play to Verstappen’s strengths, creating less drag than Leclerc’s, giving him a higher top speed while still generating enough downforce to keep him competitive through corners.
According to team boss Christian Horner, better aerodynamic balance ultimately won the Red Bull the race.
“I think they go well together and it’s just trying to put together the best race you can,” said Horner. “Strategically we are very different from Ferrari here. They have very high downforce, we have very low downforce and the setup has worked for us today.
“We just had enough speed in the straight to be able to defend, so I think we chose the right balance in terms of setup and speed in the straight.
“It was the horse for these courses and tracks that suited us and we had the results.”
Ferrari agrees that Red Bull has the advantage of slimness in race conditions, but also believes its rival has been more aggressive in upgrading its car this year. Principal Mattia Binotto is confident Ferrari can level up in the coming races, starting with new divisions at the next round in Spain.
“I always say we should wait five races to appreciate how competitive the cars are,” said Binotto. “Now that five races have passed, we are leading both championships, which is great and we shouldn’t be too disappointed.
“But it is true that Red Bull has improved their car since the beginning of the season with upgrades and today, if I look at the previous two races, they are probably a few tenths faster than us. Now, there’s no doubt that in order to stay up to speed we’ll need to grow with certain upgrades.
“Assuming that in the next races it will be our turn to try and develop the car as much as we can by trying to introduce upgrades. I think it’s not surprising that we have a car. package in Barcelona helps us hopefully, as usual, we have a package that is working as expected and that can be a good incentive to try and catch up the gap we have come with Red Bull.”
Binotto has been impressed by Red Bull’s rapid growth so far this season but also believes it will be naturally constrained by budget constraints, which are designed to prevent teams from simply simply spend their way to success.
Binotto said: “Should we be concerned? I don’t think the difference is that big between Red Bull and Ferrari at the moment, it’s just a matter of a few tenths of a second in the race.” “And we shouldn’t forget that yesterday we locked the front row and in qualifying we had a better performance than Red Bull.
“So I don’t think there’s much of a performance difference over a single weekend. If there’s any concern it’s how much they grow considering the budget limit. That’s for sure. is my concern, but perhaps not a concern but a hope because at some point it will need to stop.”
Championship leader Leclerc is backing Ferrari to improve his car at the upcoming races to allow him to take on Verstappen on the leaderboard.
“Of course they are improving and we all expect them to improve,” Leclerc said. “They are a very strong team and we are aware of this, so it is no surprise.
“But I’m also confident in my team and I’m sure we’ll deliver the upgrades that bring us back to the top. I hope so and we’re doing well and have worked well for two. last year to return to the top.”
After a brand new experience in Miami, F1 returns to action in central Europe in a two-week period with a double title win in Spain and Monaco.
