Miami GP - Review

A Showdown in Miami and a First time race winner

Lando Norris made the headlines as racing went underway in the streets of Miami for the 3rd Miami Grand Prix. The Briton won his maiden race in his 110th race start for the McLaren. He managed to stay clear of the Ferraris and Red Bulls quite comprehensively. Verstappen who won the Sprint Race and was looking quite strong over the weekend eventually finished 7 seconds behind Norris.

Sprint Race

Verstappen started off pole in the sprint race with Leclerc completing the front row. Ricciardo was the surprise package as he qualified P4 silencing his critics on account of his recent performances.

Alonso had a big moment in turn 1 as he was caught off guard by the incoming Mercedes of Hamilton after he got squeezed by his teammate Stroll. Heavy contact between the Astons resulted in Norris getting tagged along. The car didn’t endure that much damage but Mclaren decided to retire as there weren’t many points at play for. Stroll too retired after the incident.

Referring to the incident at Turn 1, Hamilton said, “I went for the gap and I think those guys went wide and came back across.”

Also during the start, Perez went wide at turn 1 and Ricciardo overtook him for 3rd place. But Perez quickly regained his position and overtook Ricciardo on the 5th lap.

Elsewhere, Magnussen got his elbows out against Hamilton as they fought for the final point’s position in the race. Haas too had instructed Magnussen to keep Hamilton at bay by any means to help the other car of Hulkenberg who was running in 7th place. Tsunoda too wasn’t much far away from all this action. Eventually, Magnussen was overtaken by both Hamilton and Tsunoda but Hulkenberg held onto his 7th position.

Referring to his performance in the sprint, an unpleased Magnussen said,
“All the penalties were well deserved. No doubt about it. But I had to play the game again. I started using these stupid tactics, which I don’t like doing, but at the end of the day, I did my job as a team player.”

Hamilton was hit with a time penalty which saw him fall to 16th place and Tsunoda promoted to 8th place.

Further ahead Max went about his business as usual and won with Leclerc and Perez finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively. Ricciardo managed to stay ahead of Sainz and finished 4th. The other Aussie, Piastri finished 6th.

Race

The starting Grid for Sunday’s race was as follows:

The lights went out at the Miami Autodrome. Verstappen had a great start but his teammate, Perez locked up at the first turn which saw him almost take out Verstappen.

Piastri had a great start as he overtook 3 cars to get 3rd place. On lap 4, he made a move on Leclerc which saw him being just behind Verstappen in the race.

Perez and Leclerc were the first cars to stop to change their tyres as they switched from Mediums to Hards. Verstappen, Sainz, and Piastri followed them along with the Mercedes pair. Norris decided against Pitting at this juncture. Eventually, he paid dividends for that. On Lap 28, Sargeant and Magnussen collided which saw Sargeant going straight into the wall which brought curtains down on his home Grand Prix. As a result, Safety Car was deployed.

Norris was the biggest gainer by this along with the VCARBs and Zhou as they too hadn’t stopped. Norris pitted and took the lead in the race and was ahead of Verstappen. Leclerc, Piastri, Sainz, and Perez followed them. It always seemed that Verstappen would take the lead quite easily given his recent performances but it didn’t happen.

As the cars went racing again on Lap 33, Norris didn’t have the best of rolling starts and Max was quickly on the tail of Norris. But Norris kept his composure and kept Verstappen at bay. On the radio, Verstappen complained about the car’s steering issues which might have been caused by the brief incident he had on Lap 21 where he hit a cone at turn 15.

During the race, engineer Gianpiero Lambiase informed Verstappen over the radio that he was losing significant time to Norris in the first corner, and later close-up footage confirmed that Verstappen's mistake of going over the curb had caused a small hole in his car's floor, dislodging a piece of carbon fiber.

A bit behind, a close battle ensued between Piastri and Sainz for 4th place. Sainz eventually managed to get ahead but in doing so brushed the McLaren which caused front wing damage. Piastri had to pit for a change in front wing which saw him falling to 18th place.

The McLaren of Norris had exemplary pace as he kept Verstappen behind for 20+ laps. Race engineer Will Joseph told Norris to keep his cool and bring it home. Meanwhile, Piastri too was warned to avoid causing any incidents and messing up the race for Norris.

The moment which Norris had been waiting for ultimately came as the chequered flag was waved and Norris became the 114th Grand Prix winner in Formula One’s history. This is Norris’s 6th season with the Papaya outfit and his hard work over the years finally paid off.

Ecstatic after his maiden victory, Norris said,
“The car was great, the strategy was perfect, and I’m over the moon. I’m proud of everyone in this team today. I’ve always believed in them, and they’ve always had faith in me, and today we’ve really justified that. A huge thanks go to them for the hard work they’ve put in that made this possible.”

Verstappen finished 7 seconds behind and still managed to get a big chunk of points in 2nd place. In the post-race interview, Verstappen was asked whether he would have won the race if Safety Car wasn’t brought out. To this, he quirkily said,

“If my mom had balls, she would have been my dad.”

Leclerc and Sainz finished 3rd and 4th respectively. The Spaniard was a bit unlucky with the timing of the safety car but still showed a decent pace and managed a good share of points. But after the race, Sainz was slapped with a 5-second penalty for his collision with Oscar Piastri. As a result, Sainz fell to 5th and Perez was promoted to 4th.

Tsunoda was another one to benefit from the Safety Car as like Norris, he pitted in the Safety Car period and finished 7th. The Mercedes drivers sandwiched him as they finished 6th and 8th. Alonso had some pretty close moments with his former teammate Esteban Ocon but Alonso managed to finish 9th ahead of Ocon in 10th. Alpine scored their first point of the season, which is a testament to their disastrous season.

The day belonged to Lando Norris and he was appreciated and congratulated by other fellow drivers on the grid and rightly so. The mid-table picture is getting clearer with every race but nothing can be said to be ensured as of now. Mclaren had great pace over the weekend and this is only gonna increase the competitive nature of the grid as they will go racing once again for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.