From drivers in crop tops to Lewis decked out in full bling and Sebastian dancing around in his underwear, we can say that the Grand Prix in Miami was certainly something! We only write up reports for in-class activities, however, so we’ll be focussing on racing in this latest edition of the report cards.
The on-track action at F1’s first Miami Grand Prix may not have been in line with off-track vibrancy and madness, but there’s still plenty to discuss. Some diamonds proved to be glass, whilst others shone brighter than expected on first inspection. Here are our report cards for Miami!
Top of the class:
Max Verstappen – Qualifying: 3rd | Race: 1st (+FL)
A pattern was starting to develop, with Max Verstappen doing great one race before being plagued by reliability gremlins the next. With him excelling at Imola, the orange army was beginning to fear that Miami would be a bust – especially when the Dutchman’s Friday was nothing to write home about and qualifying didn’t entirely go his way either. Not that it mattered, because the points are dished out on Sunday, and both the driver and his car performed superbly to maximise the points haul and break the pattern before it truly had a chance to take shape.
We were treated to yet another battle between Verstappen and current championship leader Leclerc – and after the first 5 rounds, we can cautiously start saying that we might be looking at them as the two protagonists for this season. With this win in the pocket, the point deficit between Leclerc and Verstappen has been diminished to 19.
Carlos Sainz – Qualifying: 2nd | Race: 3rd
Whilst normally dropping a place from the Quali to the race wouldn’t be worthy of ending up as a top-class contender, we shouldn’t forget that in the last two races combined, Sainz managed to complete just one lap. Add to that a heavy crash into the barriers after losing the rear in turn 14 on the Friday, and it’s quite understandable that his confidence was taken down a peg or two.
So, to then only lose a place to Verstappen, and to keep behind the other Red Bull despite the Bulls being the faster cars on the straight, is certainly something Carlos can pat himself on the back for. Or perhaps he’d like to wait with doing that a little longer, as it was reported that the Spaniard is still suffering from some discomfort after his crash.
Honourable mentions:
The first honourable mention goes to Alex Albon. Whilst we like to herald Ricciardo as the Comeback King, I think that Alex Albon is deserving of that title this season. He seems to have settled in nicely with Williams, looking truly at home in the car and extracting every ounce of pace whenever he can. His Saturday didn’t exactly go as planned, but he was there on Sunday, snatching up ninth after Alonso’s penalties.
The second honourable mention goes to George Russell. Whilst the safety car certainly aided him, it was him who made the strategy call to stay out to wait for one, rather than pitting earlier on. It was a ballsy call to make, but it played out exactly as planned. Meaning he got to cross the finish line in fifth, ahead of teammate Hamilton.
The last honourable mention goes out to Esteban Ocon. After a 51G crash on the Saturday morning, his car couldn’t be fixed up in time for qualifying, which meant that he had to start at the back. But thanks to a long stint on the hard tyres and strong pace, the Frenchman managed to cross the line in eight.
Struggle Bus:
Haas
Mick Schumacher – Qualifying: 15th | Race: 15th
Kevin Magnussen – Qualifying: 16th | Race: 16th
When looking only at the results, you might assume that Haas simply had an uneventful weekend, but that certainly wasn’t the case. They ended up in the driving seat of the struggle bus because this weekend wasn’t up to par with what we’ve been seeing from them thus far.
Especially Mick will be pondering ‘what could have been’, as it was another case of so close yet so far. He looked set for points, but colliding with Sebastian Vettel in the final laps relegated him to a position far outside of the points. Teammate Magnussen got scrappy with the other Aston Martin, meaning that points slipped from his grasp as well. All in all, not the race the American team was hoping to have on home soil.
McLaren
Lando Norris – Qualifying: 8th | Race: DNF
Daniel Ricciardo – Qualifying: 14th | Race: 11th (classified 13th due to penalties)
The papaya team didn’t have an easy weekend either. Their first outing in Miami was quite contrary to Imola, where Norris managed to snatch a podium. This time around, he was a passenger of his car after being punted into a race-ending spin by Pierre Gasly, bringing out the safety car.
Our favourite Aussie found himself just 3.5 seconds shy of points, but when it became apparent that Daniel cut corners in order to keep Magnussen behind earlier in the race, he was hit with a penalty, dropping him down to 13th. Not that it matters much, because 0 points remain 0 points.
AlphaTauri
Pierre Gasly – Qualifying: 7th | Race: DNF
Yuki Tsunoda – Qualifying: 9th | Race: 12th
AlphaTauri wielded similar results to McLaren, one driver out, another driver out of the points. The Saturday looked promising, with both the cars qualifying in the top 10, but this quickly unravelled on Sunday.
Yuki struggled with both pace and balance, which meant that after dropping down the pack, he couldn’t fight his way back up to the points. Whilst colleague Pierre Gasly had a bit of a mare due to contact with both Alonso and Norris, causing significant damage to his car and eventually forcing him to retire.
Dishonourable mentions:
The first of the dishonourable mentions goes to whoever thought hosting a Grand Prix in Miami was a good idea. Perhaps it was once upon a time, but after several layout changes, a fake harbour and mermaids in the Hard Rock Pools, I’m less than impressed. If you ask me, there wasn’t anything particularly memorable or special about the layout. I can appreciate all the hard work that went into it, especially with how they tried to turn the whole event into something more than ‘just’ a race.
But that’s just the thing; when you start doing that, you run the risk of the racing itself becoming secondary, and in Miami, it felt like this was the case. It doesn’t help that prominent journalists seemed to be dealing with conflicts of interests… Now don’t get me wrong, we got a good race, but we’ve mainly got the 2022 regulation changes to thank for that (and Gasly and Norris for bringing out a safety car), as it allows for closer racing. Miami will need some revisions, not just to make it more exciting, but also to increase safety – as drivers weren’t impressed this time around.
Second up is Aston Martin. Putting them on the struggle bus didn’t feel right, as they’ve had a troubled 2022 thus far and were actually doing quite well for their standards. They seemed to have decent pace and both Vettel and Stroll made some feisty moves as they tried to elbow their way further up the pack. In the end, tangling with both Haas drivers meant that they only took home a single point, and that’s after Alonso’s penalty was tallied up, but I feel that they would have managed more. Perhaps, if they didn’t have to deal with a fuel issue and start from the pitlane, then they would have been fighting further ahead and would have never come across Mick and Kevin. Then again, ‘what if’ scenarios are always easier to conjure up with hindsight being 2020.
Third up is Zhou Guanyu, who was simply unlucky (yet again). A water leak meant that the Chinese driver had his fourth consecutive non-scoring weekend, whilst teammate Bottas managed quite the opposite, scoring four times in five races.
Last but not least, we’ve got Fernando Alonso. He didn’t just get a 5-second penalty for colliding with Pierre Gasly, but got a second 5-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage at turn 14 in the later stages of the races. Meaning that there will be 3 points in total slipping through his fingers.
The teams will be using this short intermittence to hop back across the pond, as the next weekend on the calendar will be the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. No more late-ish evening starts for us, as lights will be going out at 2 pm UK time.
