Key events
Lap 4/57: “Hi! We’re battling for sixth place against each other!”
“What fun! Let’s go for it!”
“Hey, who’s that guy?”
zoom …
Max Verstappen whips past two drivers into sixth place. Already up three places.
Sargeant, meanwhile, has apologized to his team on the radio for whatever brought him into the pit early.
Lap 2/57: Miami-area native Logan Sargeant is already in the pit, and it’s a long stop of nearly 30 seconds.
Lap 1/57: Verstappen is playing the long game, opting for hard tires, but he’s already up one place to eighth.
Lights out!
Pérez holds his position well! Magnussen drops immediately from fourth to seventh, and Piastri has leapt from 19th to 14th. De Vries is the biggest loser of the start, though, getting in a bit of a scrape and dropping to last place.
Other than that, it’s a clean start, and all of the big names are away with little fuss.
Conditions
79 degrees, which in Celsius is “warm.” It’s also windy. But we don’t see much of a threat of rain.
The top seven are on medium tires. Then it’s mostly hard tires except for the McLarens in 16th and 19th, who’ve gone soft.
Formation lap now … the next post will be the start …
The grid
1 Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) – the Mexican driver is only six points behind his Red Bull teammate Verstappen in the season standings. The points system goes 25-18-15-12-10, plus one point for the fastest lap, so a win would guarantee him at least a tie for first on the season so far.
2 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) – the champion in 2005 and 2006, rarely a podium contender in the past seven years, hasn’t finished outside the top four this season
3 Carlo Sainz (Ferrari) – the Spanish driver was third in Miami last year behind Verstappen and Leclerc
4 Kevin Magnussen (Haas) – the Danish driver gives the American team an unusually high placement on the grid
5 Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
6 George Russell (Mercedes)
7 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – can he shake off the qualifying mishap yesterday?
8 Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
9 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) – how many people can he overtake?
10 Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo)
11 Alexander Albon (Williams)
12 Nico Hulkenberg (Haas)
13 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – when will the frustration end?
14 Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo)
15 Nyck De Vries (AlphaTauri)
16 Lando Norris (McLaren)
17 Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri)
18 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) – more North American representation (Canada) on the grid
19 Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
20 Logan Sargeant (Williams) – the hometown hero is still very much a newcomer at this level
The track
Celebrity spotting
Miami is a rather glitzy city, even by F1 standards, and the Sky Sports crew (whose feed is picked up by ESPN here in a country that is awakening to F1, perhaps at the expense of the more provincial NASCAR and IndyCar series), and the task of everyone with a camera today will be to find famous people.
So far, we’ve seen Roger Federer, Timbaland, will.i.am, Patrick Mahomes, Tom Cruise and LL Cool J.
Also, Danica Patrick is on the Sky broadcast team.
And Sky has just chatted with Paolo Banchero. He was the near-unanimous NBA Rookie of the Year, but more importantly, he played for my alma mater in college.
(Update: It appears Serena Williams doesn’t have time to chat with Sky Sports, and F1 legend Jackie Stewart is leaning through a security detail to try to get Roger Federer’s attention. After a struggle, Federer has graciously come over to talk for a second before the driver announcements, which will feature LL Cool J and a small orchestra.)
How did Pérez end up with this opportunity?
Rewind one week to a big win in Baku …
Then yesterday, Verstappen got caught out when a Charles Leclerc crash brought qualifying to a premature end before the two-time defending champion could take his last shot at improving his time.
Preamble
If you’re looking for coronations that unfold at a languid pace, you may need to be satisfied with yesterday’s proceedings at Westminster Abbey.
Max Verstappen, who followed up his controversial 2021 championship with a dominant 2022 run, no longer seems to be the sure bet to complete his hat trick and continue what’s likely to be a career-long procession toward the record of seven season championships, currently held by Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton.
Among constructors, the changing of the guard is truly complete, and that explains why Verstappen’s likeliest usurper is his Red Bull teammate, Sergio Pérez, who won last week in Azerbaijan and sits on the pole for today’s race around Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, usually the home of the Miami Dolphins but refashioned today as the central hospitality area for the globetrotting road show of Formula 1. See this video to get a tour of all the spectator areas.
While Pérez gets his shot at leading the whole way on a track not known for easy passes, Verstappen must work his way up from ninth.
Could be worse. Hamilton starts 13th, waiting impatiently for his Mercedes team to get him a more competitive set of wheels.
Lights out: 3:30pm local, 8:30pm BST, 5:30 am AEST
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s how the weekend so far has unfolded:
Max Verstappen faces the toughest test of his season after being punished for a mistake in qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix. The race desperately wants some fireworks to go with the grand spectacle it is so determined to present and Red Bull’s world champion must now very much light the blue touch paper in Florida.
With his teammate Sergio Pérez taking pole and Verstappen managing only ninth, the Dutchman’s slender championship lead of six points over the Mexican is under genuine threat on Sunday on a track where an inexorable march back to the front from the Dutchman is far from guaranteed and where any errors will be punished even more harshly.
On form and on the back of a dominant world championship victory last year, Verstappen will not have expected to come under the cosh from Pérez so early in the season, yet at the Miami International Autodrome it was the world champion found wanting, while Pérez took advantage.
Though Verstappen was unlucky, too, he had to abort his first hot run in Q3, having gone wide after being untidy through turns four and five, putting him under pressure for the final quick laps, with Pérez having nailed his lap and holding provisional pole.
Verstappen needed a perfect run on his final shot but was denied it when Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc crashed out, overcooking it through six and seven and going into the barriers.
