What we learned from Friday practice at F1’s 2023 Miami GP
A return to the traditional race weekend schedule meant a welcomed opportunity to bank laps and collect long run data. But that plan was thwarted due to red flags stalling both Friday practice sessions that have clouded the outlook ahead of the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.
A decisive 1m27.930s set Max Verstappen atop of the charts in the second Miami Grand Prix free practice session, the two-time Formula 1 champion beating Carlos Sainz by 0.3s.
This was over two seconds quicker than the FP1 headliner set by Mercedes’ George Russell, who had led a Mercedes 1-2 in the opening Friday session at the Miami International Autodrome, despite losing approximately 25 minutes of the session’s run-time after his team elected to make changes to his steering rack following early struggles.
Verstappen spent the initial moments of FP2 battling against the Ferraris and team-mate Sergio Perez for the fastest time on the early medium runs, but the switch to soft tyre running thrust Lando Norris to the top as the McLaren driver set an impressive lap.
Although he was eventually overcome by the Red Bulls, Ferraris, and Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, Norris’ run was a first-time effort that eventually yielded sixth in the session.
The story of the day
Aside from Verstappen and Russell’s chart-topping exploits, the most notable incident of Friday’s running involved a Ferrari in the wall – a crash that stifled the majority of teams’ long-run preparations towards the end of the session.
With 10 minutes remaining in FP2, Charles Leclerc suffered a hard rock to his preparations during the flurry of race runs by careening into the barrier at Turn 7, his rear tyres locking to earn the Monegasque a one-way ticket to the barrier – producing a red flag.
He was not the sole proponent of clumsy moments across the hour-long duo of Friday sessions, as Nico Hulkenberg produced a red flag after losing the rear of his Haas VF-23 at Turn 3 during the opening free practice session. Both Haas drivers were in the wars at some point over the day, as Kevin Magnussen endured a spin at Turn 14 early on in FP2 and was lucky to only brush the wall, ensuring that he could keep going in the session to get more laps on the board.
Alex Albon sustained a spin of his own in FP2 having gone too deep at Turn 17, and had to countersteer to keep his car out of the wall. The drivers struggled with the lack of grip on offer at the track, prompting Sergio Perez to quip that intermediate tyres might have been preferable on the newly relaid track surface.
Leclerc had an abrupt end to his Friday practice in Miami
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Top 10 FP2 order
Leclerc’s accident in the final part of FP2 hurt the teams’ long runs, leaving very limited data for the teams to go on as they explored the limits of tyre life in preparation for Sunday. This particularly hurt those conducting stints on the medium tyre; in the case of the Red Bull duo, their runs on the medium tyre lasted only three laps each before Leclerc’s wall-bothering antics put a pin in their best-laid plans.
One can make a very good guess which team is most likely to secure a victory, given the advantage 2023’s standout team has over the rest of the field, but the absence of data ensures that it might not be a Red Bull walkover
Ferrari had split its strategy, with Leclerc conducting a run on the yellow-walled C3 tyre as Sainz continued to pound around the 5.412km circuit on the red-tinged C4 compound. The Spaniard had managed to get five laps in before his team-mate interrupted proceedings with his crash.
At this juncture, dear reader – and here’s a peek behind the curtain. On a normal weekend, the post-FP2 feature would contain details of long-run pace and degradation of the tyres in the hands of each car, and then work towards a conclusion over who is best equipped to win the grand prix. Stints are analysed, drop off in times are noted depending on the caveats at play, and some semblance of an order can emerge from this analysis. But, in this instance, no data exists.
Leclerc’s ill-timed red flag leaves all F1 teams without a healthy bank of long run data
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz / Motorsport Images
One can make a very good guess which team is most likely to secure a victory, given the advantage 2023’s standout team has over the rest of the field, but the absence of data ensures that it might not be a Red Bull walkover. If last year’s track surface had remained in place, the teams would be able to lean on models produced with last season’s data and try to extrapolate from incomplete data, but that variable has also changed during the off-season.
This has caused the tyres to behave slightly inconsistently, and wear profiles around the Miami circuit remain an unknown. On the quicker runs during FP2 with the soft tyre, there have been instances of the tyre keeping enough life about it for multiple runs provided the driver is able to manage its performance during a cooldown lap between push laps. It’s usually the case in F1 that the soft tyre struggles to be useful for anything more than one all-out lap and, if this behaviour carries over into qualifying, this could slightly change how the teams approach the end of each stage. But that’s conjecture at this stage, largely because it remains to be seen how hot the track will get on Saturday. Temperatures are expected to be similar to Friday’s peak of 30 degrees Celsius, which could tip the track temperatures beyond the 50C mark. The cooldown lap thus becomes even more important in that realm of heat, as thermal degradation poses as very real threat.
There’s also speculation that rain may play a part over the rest of the weekend, but there may be a greater chance of levitating porcine intervention in the sky than any kind of clouds…
Trackside observations
For the opening free practice session, Motorsport.com observed the initial phases of running at the Miami circuit at Turn 17, the hairpin ahead of the rapid left-right before the start-finish straight. The drivers began tentatively, making sure to hit their braking points at the end of the long back straight to feed the car into the run to the line.
With each passing lap, confidence grew among the driving fraternity and more drivers started to reduce their steering input on the corner exit to let the car drift out wide towards the wall. Perez and Verstappen were unsurprisingly the first to start opening up the corner more, followed by the Ferraris and Alpines.
The cars traditionally occupying slots further down the grid were naturally the last to start pushing through that section, and mistakes were more proliferate from the likes of Williams and Haas. Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant went deep into the hairpin, while Magnussen was close to understeering into the exit wall – but the Dane managed to switch on some opposite lock to arrest the slide.
Each F1 team’s car handling characteristics were exposed in Miami
Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images
We moved to Turn 3 for the latter part of the session, with a view of Turn 1 and 2. Here there were more mistakes, even among the frontrunners; Verstappen had a wide moment at the first corner, but Sainz’s off-colour moment in that corner was even more spectacular, as the Ferrari driver was at full lock while moving purely sideways, waiting patiently for the tyres to bite and offer the chance of forward momentum.
The low-grip surface proved to be a challenge, and watching the drivers tackle an all-or-nothing qualifying lap on Saturday will undoubtedly offer moments of peril if the tyres struggle to find purchase.
What the drivers said
Max Verstappen: “I think it was a good day. Initially, I think it was getting used to a track a bit with a new tarmac. I think it really was ramping up a lot throughout the day. But I always felt good in the car. And we had a good balance. It’s still slippery offline. I think the driving is quite okay. As soon as you go offline, it’s a lot less grip. But it’s the same for everyone. But most importantly, today, I think we had a good balance in the car to start with so I’m quite happy.”
“I think we need to make some improvements overnight. We know we’ve got the potential because we saw it in FP1. We saw it at the start of FP2. We just need to get things aligned” George Russell
Sergio Perez: “The grip out there was very low, especially in FP1. It felt like intermediate conditions pretty much. We were measuring wet conditions to inter conditions. We’ve been trying a few things with the mechanical balance. We learned quite a bit and in the long run, I don’t think we managed to get a read because of the very few laps that we end up doing out there. But generally, I think we’ve got a good baseline.”
George Russell: “There’s no reason why we can’t be ahead of Ferrari and Aston Martin. That is the aim. I think we’ve seen in these first four races now it’s really tight between those three teams. So if only that was for the win. And for pole position it would be incredibly exciting. But it’s good because it shows if we get things right, we can be rewarded and jump ahead of them. But I think we need to make some improvements overnight. We know we’ve got the potential because we saw it in FP1. We saw it at the start of FP2. We just need to get things aligned.”
Who can take the fight to the Red Bull this weekend?
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz / Motorsport Images
