Miami Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri’s rookie season, Max Verstappen’s championship campaign, night races, 2023 calendar

Oscar Piastri’s debut season hasn’t delivered the spectacular results of his junior career, but the Aussie rookie is doing the business despite the difficulties.

Piastri has made an understated start to life in Formula 1. He’s had the pace to push highly rated teammate Lando Norris and has been a cool and calculated head in the race.

But that’s not been enough to overcome the considerable deficit of his troubled McLaren car, which has so far this season been an erratic performer, swinging from wallowing back-of-grid performances to unexpectedly reasonable pointscoring finishes.

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Miami was another deeply forgettable round for Woking. Slowest of all in qualifying and the race, the papaya cars offered drivers little to work with on a painful Sunday afternoon.

The day was more difficult for Piastri than for most, though, after a technical problem almost eliminated him from the race — until he managed to convince the team he could bring his undrivable car to the finish.

After the flag attention turned to the podium, where Max Verstappen received his third winners trophy of the season after a comeback from ninth on the grid — and the Dutchman insists the moment wasn’t spoiled by the chorus of boos that welcomed him to top spot.

And Miami’s organisers are canvassing the possibility of switching to a night race in what would be a boon for Australian fans.

PIASTRI DRIVE TO 19TH ILLUSTRATES EXCELLENCE

Oscar Piastri’s difficult drive to a lapped 19th was another illustration of his ability to adapt under pressure, according to McLaren principal Andrea Stella.

McLaren was the least competitive team in Miami, with Lando Norris and Piastri qualifying 16th and 19th and finishing 17th and 19th respectively.

But Piastri’s Sunday was particularly tough thanks to a brake-by-wire issue that made the car almost undrivable, so much so that the team decided to retire the Aussie’s MCL60 based on two indicators picked up in the data.

“The first one was that the rear brakes started to overheat,” Stella said, per RacingNews365. “The second one was that Oscar went long in a couple of corners because he was pretty much using only the front brakes as we were trying to resolve the problem.”

But the pit wall had its mind changed by Piastri’s ability to drive around the problem and overcome the issue, allowing him to stay out and finish the race in case a safety car or other interruption shook up the field.

“We kind of found some settings and also the adaptation of the driver, which meant that we could keep the brake temperature under control and also we could have a relatively good level of consistency in braking,” Stella said.

“So we decided to stay in the race. We know that there weren’t many opportunities but we are here to race, we stay in the race.

“He needed to drive the entire race with a problem on the brake-by-wire, which Oscar was excellent in being able to cope with.

“After having locked the tyres three or four times, he kind of realised how he needed to adapt the way he was braking to the issue.”

The extended running also meant McLaren was able to gather more data on the upgrade package it brought to the car at the previous weekend in Azerbaijan.

VERSTAPPEN NOT WORRIED BY BOOS

Max Verstappen is unfazed by the booing he received from the crowd at the Miami Grand Prix, saying he’d prefer to be known and disliked than shrouded in the obscurity of the back of the grid.

Verstappen was jeered by the crowd both during the contentious driver presentation ceremony shortly before the start of the race and on the podium when he was presented with his winners trophy.

But the Dutchman said he didn’t have a problem with the booing because it was a response to him winning.

“I think if I will be driving in the back, nobody will be even doing anything in terms of reaction, right?” he said.

“I think it’s normal when you’re winning and they don’t like who is winning. So this is something for me which is absolutely fine as long as I stand on the top, that’s for me the most important.

“I take the trophy home and they go back to their houses and they can have a nice evening.”

Verstappen is no stranger to riling up an audience, particularly during his fraught 2021 title battle with Lewis Hamilton, which polarised the F1 supporter base to previously unseen levels.

But the jeering was arguably at its worst the following year, with both Verstappen and Hamilton booed at various raced depending on who most of the crowd supported.

He was moved to speak out after Hamilton received an especially hostile reception at the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix, declaring those who cheered when the Briton and teammate George Russell crashed out of qualifying were “not really F1 fans”.

“They cannot really enjoy what is actually happening right now, a lot of great drivers actually fighting against each other,” he told The Guardian at the time.

“How many times do you get to experience stuff like that? Such an intense rivalry or fights. These people are not lovers of the sport.”

MIAMI CONSIDERING NIGHT RACE

Miami Grand Prix organisers have discussed transferring their event to running at night.

The Miami race is two seasons into its 10-year contract and is one of three races in the United States this season, including the long-running United States Grand Prix in Austin and the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which will debut on the calendar in November.

Lighting a grand prix circuit comes at considerable expense and adds a layer of logistic complexity to a race, but the Miami International Autodrome is built around the Hard Rock Stadium, which is owned by Stephen Ross, who is also the race promoter via his RSE Ventures investment company.

Miami Dolphins CEO Tom Garfinkel is also the grand prix’s managing partner.

Garfinkel said discussions about a possible transfer to an evening starting hour were already taking place.

“We’ve had some discussions about that,” he said, per ESPN. “It’s obviously this time of year the weather’s a little unpredictable — the weather’s been nice this year so far, last year was unseasonably hot — but there’s a lot of factors that go into that with F1 and television and everything else, so we’ve got to weigh all those things, but we’re certainly open-minded to it.”

But Garfinkel added the decision was still a way off being made.

“We’re not at a place where we’re making a decision right now,” he added. “I think we’re having discussions where if we did it what would it look like.”

Six of the sport’s 23 races this season are run at night or twilight, including Las Vegas.

The Vegas race is held very late at night, with qualifying at midnight and the race at 10pm — though that’s great news for Australian viewers, for whom those sessions will be 9pm and 5pm respectively on the east coast.

Sunset in Miami at this time of year is at around 8pm, which is 10am AEST.