Key events
Lap 6/57: Another radio broadcast says they might get rain in 28 laps, and if so, it will be heavy. No in-betweens, apparently.
Lap 5/57: We’re on board with Lewis Hamilton, who sufficiently unnerves Isack Hadhar into a mistake and takes advantage by slipping past into … oh. He’s 11th. Don’t get too excited.
No, the Red Bulls aren’t as dominant this season as they have been in the last couple of years, but you have to think Verstappen might race into the distance if he’s not penalized.
Lap 4/57: Piastri just shot past Antonelli into second on a straightaway.
Over Ocon’s radio, we hear possible rain in 15 minutes, which is actually the default weather forecast for Florida.
Lap 4/57: “A little elbows out” says Zak Brown of McLaren, who sounds calm but certainly wants Verstappen to be penalized.
“I got completely hit, mate,” Lawson says on the radio. “I don’t know what the Alpine was doing.”
That would be Doohan, but did he have anywhere to go?
Lap 2/57: OK, it’s a Virtual Safety Car, as Doohan can’t quite get off the track. Replay shows he got squeezed by Lawson like Florida orange juice but wound up running into the Racing Bulls driver, who was dropped by the upper Red Bulls team after two races this season.
Lap 1/57: We’ve got a yellow flag … no, green … yellow … green again …
Verstappen has already opened up a 1.5-second lead over Antonelli. Then it’s Piastri, Russell, Albon and an annoyed Norris.
Lights out!
Which is by Peter Wolf, not Bon Jovi.
Norris battles Verstappen and immediately regrets it, going off the track and losing several places. Verstappen had locked up a bit but recovered quickly.
Antonelli also got in the mix.
Jack Doohan already has a puncture.
OK, first, a bunch of Bon Jovi references upon seeing the great singer hovering around the track. “Slippery When Wet” is the winner, of course.
Formation lap done. Here we go …
Tires, tires, weather, tires, very pretty trophy, cell phones up … and it’s time … here we go …
The grid and the history
The storied history of the Miami F1 race goes all the way back to 2022. The winner on the new 3.363-mile Miami International Autodrome circuit was, of course, Max Verstappen.
In 2023, the winner was … Max Verstappen. So what if he only qualified ninth?
Last year, though, history was truly made – the first win, at long last, by Lando Norris.
Norris’ win was particularly surprising because he qualified fifth behind Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez. Verstappen and Leclerc rounded out the podium, followed by Perez and Sainz.
“Enough history!” you say. “Please tell us the lineup!”
OK, OK. The pole-sitter is, of course, Max Verstappen.
1. Verstappen (Red Bull)
2. Norris (McLaren; sprint winner)
3. Antonelli (Mercedes)
4. Piastri (McLaren)
5. Russell (Mercedes)
6. Sainz (Williams)
7. Albon (Williams)
8. Leclerc (Ferrari)
9. Ocon (Haas)
10. Tsunoda (Red Bull)
11. Hadjar (Racing Bulls)
12. Hamilton (Ferrari)
13. Bortoledo (Sauber)
14. Doohan (Alpine)
15. Lawson (Racing Bulls)
16. Hulkenberg (Sauber)
17. Alonso (Aston Martin)
18. Stroll (Aston Martin)
19. Bearman (Haas)
Starting from pit road: Gasly (Alpine)
“Lego F1” is trending on BlueSky. Here’s why …
Allow content provided by a third party?
This article includes content hosted on embed.bsky.app. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’.
King Bell is doing the national anthem. It’s very subdued. The concern over the weather is palpable. It’s a good day to be somewhere other than in a race car.
The weather forecast is …
… not good.
But the interviews continue, with Lisa from White Lotus. Apparently, just Lisa. I’m a GenXer, so I don’t know such things.
Evander Holyfield is here. He likens his interest in F1 to a lot of people’s interest in boxing – happy to watch, not as interested in participating.
A more current boxer, Conor Benn, is also here and is very excited about having won his last fight and being on the F1 grid for the first time. (UPDATE: I’ve been informed that, contrary to what interviewer Martin Brundle said, Benn did NOT win his last fight. In a remarkably good mood, considering.)
And Jackie Stewart, as always.
It’s paddock-walking time. Among the celebrities: Gordon Ramsay and Jerry Bruckheimer, the latter of whom produced a film on F1.
How much fun would it be for a team to hire Ramsay to operate the team radios?
Is Formula One inherently … British?
Allow content provided by a third party?
This article includes content hosted on embed.bsky.app. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’.
That should be in reference to Kimi Antonelli, who had the pole for Saturday’s sprint race.
Lando Norris wound up winning that sprint race.
Preamble: Hey, it’s competitive now!
In case you haven’t been following F1 this season, we have some surprising news.
It’s competitive again.
Max Verstappen’s rapid overtaking of Lewis Hamilton’s records no longer seems inevitable. He’s in third place behind the two young McLaren drivers, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, who are rewarding their team’s youth movement with stellar seasons so far. Piastri debuted in 2023 and finished ninth overall, then climbed to fourth last year. Norris was second last year, building on the momentum of his first Formula One win — in Miami, site of today’s race.
Just two years ago, Verstappen and Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez won all but one race through the whole season. This year, with Perez having left Formula 1 for the time being, Verstappen has one win in five races, and his teammate just changed from Liam Lawson to Yuki Tsunoda, neither of whom has ever been on the podium.
Six drivers are in their first full season, led by Italian prodigy Andrea Kimi Antonelli, George Russell’s teammate at Mercedes. The 18-year-old debuted with a fourth-place finish and stands sixth on the season — one ahead of the man he replaced, the aforementioned 40-year-old seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton.
In other words, the standings are …
1. Piastri (McLaren), 106
2. Norris (McLaren), 97
3. Verstappen (Red Bull), 87
4. Russell (Mercedes), 78
5. Leclerc (Ferrari), 47
6. Antonelli (Mercedes), 40
7. Hamilton (Ferrari), 37
No one else has more than 20. The only other drivers with top-5 finishes this year are Alexander Albon and Esteban Ocon, who are eighth and ninth in the standings.
Beau will be here shortly, in the meantime here’s Giles Richards on the Miami GP’s rise:
With a sellout once more expected, this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix is building on an appeal to a younger, diverse audience that is a key part of Formula One’s burgeoning success in the US. Making its mark on the calendar with a grand, spectacular party in the Florida sunshine since the inaugural race in 2022, Miami is considered something of a showcase.
The opening blast of the three meetings now held in the US is a shop window for the sport with three teams, Racing Bulls, Sauber and Ferrari boasting special liveries for the event this weekend. The flamingo pink of the RB is very much making a splash but the clunky corporate blue addition to the Scuderia’s scarlet has fallen very flat with fans.
Naysayers may have disliked Miami’s emphasis on being a show, of presenting a weekend of entertainment where the food and beverages (or F&B as it is bafflingly, for the uninitiated, referred to here) were as fundamental as the racing. Where the atmosphere went hand in hand with the competition. It was perhaps the first of the “event” races F1 wanted to promote and like it or not, it has succeeded with numbers around this race telling their own story.
The atmosphere in the general admission – campus – area of the increasingly popular and affordable tickets away from the high-end hospitality which dominates all the media, is one of unadulterated enjoyment, shot through with the glorious absence of world-weary cynicism. There is an air of, whisper it, hedonism; not all racing must be accompanied by sombre beard-scratching from a grassy bank in the rain.
You can read the full article below:
.jpg?w=390&resize=390,220&ssl=1 "The View invites Amber Ruffin to do her canceled White House dinner monologue")