In Pictures: Miami 2023
The Formula 1 family arrived at one of the most hyped grand prix of the season, the race at the Miami International Autodrome, a 3.363 mi (5.412 km) long purpose-built temporary circuit around Hard Rock Stadium and its private facilities in the Miami suburb of Miami Gardens, Florida.
Confirmed attendance for Miami GP: 270,491 during the three days, distributed like this: 89,427 on Friday, 90,298 on Saturday, and 90,766 on Sunday.
FRIDAY
FP1
It was hot for the first practice with track temperature reaching 51°C, and right on cue, the cars took to the track as they looked to get to grips with the resurfaced circuit, which proved to be a bit slippery, and somewhat tricky as Nico Hulkenberg found out when crashing into the barrier at Turn 3. He was second fastest at the time of his crash.
With the Haas VF-23 cleared from the track, the session was resumed with Verstappen and Leclerc doing some fast laps, until the Mercedes pair, leaving late to set the times on soft tires, with Russell crossing the line to set a time of 1m 30.125s, 0.212 faster than Hamilton in second. Leclerc finished third, ahead of Verstappen and Sainz.
FP2
Sixteen of the twenty drivers took to the track early on to gather as much information as possible, especially looking at track evolution and tire degradation.
The session went on rather quietly with most doing long runs, but then, with a notch over ten minutes to the end of Practice Two, Charles Leclerc lost the rear, tried correcting but went straight on at turn 8 crashing his Ferrari into the barrier, bringing out a red flag.
The Top Five were: Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz, Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez, and Fernando Alonso.
SATURDAY
What an intense day this was, King Charles III's coronation back in London, the Copa del Rey match between Real Madrid and Osasuna in Spain, a most important basketball game for the local team, the Miami Heat, and Formula 1’s Grand Prix qualifying. But talking about heat, it was very hot down, albeit windy as well, at the Miami International Autodrome.
FP3
Contrary to what happened the day before, few cars came out early on, taking their time to do their respective installation laps, and therefore the all important timed laps to sample qualifying later.
After a super busy, but rather uneventful session, it was Max Verstappen setting the pace, ahead of Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz, and Esteban Ocon, the Top Five.
QUALIFYING
Track evolution has played a big part in the almost four seconds drop in timed laps from Practice 1 to Practice 3. That means the last person to cross the finish line in each of the three qualifying stints, has a better opportunity than the rest.
Q1
The 18 minute long Q1 started with sixteen of the twenty drivers going out almost immediately, trying to set the fastest lap possible. And Track Evolution did play a part with the top fifteen drivers finishing inside the same second! Out were Lando Norris, Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll, Oscar Piastri, and Logan Sargeant.
Q2
Eight of the fifteen drivers took to the track early on. Max Verstappen was in command with the fastest lap of the weekend so far, a blistering 1:26.814, followed by Leclerc, and Alonso. The shocker was those eliminated, Alex Albon, Nico Hulkenberg, Lewis Hamilton, Zhou Guanyu, and Nyck de Vries.
"We left that WAY too late, guys!" Lewis Hamilton
Q3
Nine of the remaining ten drivers came out quickly. It was Bottas who stayed in the pits. Lap times started to tumble down, but then, with just 1:36 minutes left, Charles Leclerc lost the rear of his Ferrari at turn 7 crashing into the barriers and bringing out a red flag, the session was not resumed, thus, it was Sergio Perez getting Pole Position, ahead of Fernando Alonso. Behind them came Carlos Sainz, Kevin Magnussen, Pierre Gasly, George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Esteban Ocon, Max Verstappen, and Valtteri Bottas.
Talk about drama…
““I think it’s been my worst weekend up to qualifying, I just couldn’t figure out how to pull those tenths that I was missing all the time to Max and to the Ferraris. I was just resetting everything. We did a small change into qualifying and really everything became more alive. I think with this tarmac we were just playing a bit with the tools, and we put in the lap when it mattered.””
SUNDAY
The track was cleaned by heavy rain during the night before the Grand Prix, making the race a bit trickier for everyone as it was as green as at the start of practice 1 and way cooler as the track temperature was only 35°C, down from 45°C on Saturday.
A new part during the Pre-Race celebrations was the driver’s introduction, an interesting way to present each driver to the grid. Iconic recording artist will.i.am helped get race day at the 2023 Miami Grand Prix off to a spectacular start, as he conducted an orchestral version of his brand-new track THE FORMULA, as fellow music grandee LL Cool J introduced each and every one of the 20 F1 drivers onto the grid at the Miami International Autodrome.
After the introductions, and at exactly 3:30 PM Local Time (EST) the race started. with Perez leading the pack, next was Fernando Alonso, defending from Carlos Sainz. Further back, in 9th place, Max Verstappen started his charge up to the front, including a spectacular double pass on Kevin Magnussen and Charles Leclerc down the pit straight, to claim 5th place.
On lap 23 it was announced that Carlos Sainz was hit with a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pits during his swap of tires.
Somewhere else on track, Verstappen continued moving forward, he was up to second place after further overtakes on Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso, Verstappen closed to within a second of Perez before the Mexican pitted to ditch his Mediums and switched to the Hards.
A few laps later, Verstappen took over the lead, with the question being whether Perez could close up through the middle part of the race on the fresher Hard tire. But Perez ended up losing time to Verstappen, making it almost neck and neck once the Dutch driver did dive into the pits.
That stop came on Lap 45, with 12 laps to go, with Verstappen coming out 1.5 seconds behind Perez. Armed with fresh Mediums, it took just two laps for Verstappen to catch and pass his teammate.
It was Planet Max this weekend as he won the Miami Grand Prix after starting in 9th position. Sergio Perez finished second, and Fernando Alonso third, his fourth podium in five races so far this season.
Max Verstappen’s masterclass driving earned him Driver of the Day by the f1.com fans.
““It was a good race, I stayed out of trouble at the beginning and then just had a clean race, picked the cars off one by one. Then I could stay out really long on the hard tires and that’s where I think we made the difference today. I had a good little battle with Checo at the end. We kept it clean and that’s the most important, it’s a great win today. Yesterday was of course a bit of a setback, today we just kept it calm, kept it clean, and for sure winning a race from P9 is always very satisfying.”
Max Verstappen on booing:
““People often don’t like it when you win. If we were driving at the back, we wouldn’t have heard anything. But l’d rather be at the top and take my trophy with me. And they go home and have a nice evening...””
““Well done to Max, he had a tremendous race and deserved to win, I am really happy for him. It is not always nice when you lead the race and end up second, certainly I didn’t have the pace of Max and it is something we are going to analyze to see how we can do better. When I saw how strong Max was coming through the field and I was struggling a bit, I thought ‘this isn’t looking too good’. It would have been a gamble on strategy to start on the hard tire from pole position. Of course, I wanted to win but I knew early on the race was looking tricky for us. This is one to learn from because clearly Max had the fastest pace. I think the performance Max showed today was not reachable for me, so I have to understand why. I think some was tire related but equally, overall, he was the stronger driver today. There was maybe a bit more we could have done; it is a bit of a shame really but in general, on a tough weekend P2 is not a bad result. We will review the weekend. I want to get back strong for Imola and get back to our normal level.””
““The car is amazing, and it was a little bit of a lonely race, today, nothing really to do in front of us with the Red Bulls and behind us. We did expect a little bit stronger opposition, but the Ferraris, they were a little bit worse than expected. It’s not easy, it’s never easy, but it was a lonely race.””
INTERESTING FACT: Miami 2023 was only the 13th race without a single DNF in F1 history!
NEXT RACE: F1 returns to Europe for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, otherwise known as Imola, from May 19-21. Yes, this is the same track they used to run the San Marino Grand Prix for so many years.
