It was an…. interesting race day in the second-ever Grand Prix in Miami to say the least. From bizarre opening ceremonies, millions of celebs in the paddocks, and unfortunate tyre strategies - we have you covered.

Lets Get You Caught Up!

🏁 Grand Prix Race Results🏁

Race Facts

Fastest Lap: 1:29.708 (Max Verstappen)

Top Speed (Speed Trap): 348km/h (Lance Stroll)

Crashes: 1 (minor between DeVries & Norris)

Highest Climber: Max Verstappen (+8)

Biggest Loser: Kevin Magnussen (-6)

Race Recap 🏎️💨

Picture the most ridiculous, cringe, funny, typical American thing you can think of….. then times that by 10.

That’s how shocking the opening ceremony for the Miami GP was this weekend. Truly impressive. But anyway lets get into the good stuff, the actual racing.

The majority of the grid started the race on medium tyres with a one pit strategy moving to hards after the first 20 or so laps. 7 world time champion Lewis Hamilton (P13) and the reigning world champion Max Verstappen (P9) started on their HARDs, looking to outlast the pack and jump up the places while others pit and then finish the race on a quicker set of mediums.

Note: (Hard Tyres last longer during a traditional race than Medium Tyres. The payoff is that usually Hard Tyres are slower. F1 rules also say that all drivers must use TWO types of tyres each race)

Sergio Perez of Redbull started on pole and held his position through Turn 1 followed by Alonso and Sainz. The first few laps were extremely clean and the middle of the pack hustled for early position. Verstappen didn’t hang around for long and made his first move in lap 4 overtaking Magnussen AND Leclerc at once while the Haas and the Ferrari were too occupied fighting each other to make any kind of defensive move on the Redbull.

TOO EASY. 🐂

Fernando Alonso is a funny guy. The 41 year old has been around long enough to know a fast car when he sees one and after qualifying P2 on the Saturday he was asked when he expected he would see Verstappen in his rearview mirrors:

Lol if only he knew. Verstappen made LIGHT work of bumping off Russell in the ninth lap going a cool 350km/h!!! 😮‍💨 By lap 15 he had moved passed Sainz and Alonso up into P2 and was hunting his Red Bull teammate like a man possessed. Only 10 laps early then! 🥲

Remember, going into the race Perez was only 6 points behind Verstappen in the Driver’s championship so a win in Miami would have seen the Mexican take the top spot. Easier said than done when it comes to Max Verstappen.

Perez was the first Red Bull to pit on lap 21, with a 2.2-second stop that allowed Verstappen to lead.

Verstappen proved faster on MUCH older tyres than Perez was on new hards, and pitted on lap 46 – although his stop was a slow 3.1s – and Max rejoined behind his team-mate on fresh mediums. Perez was a sitting duck on the older tyres and he was passed by Verstappen with 10 laps to go at Turn 1 who then pulled away to win by over 5 seconds. RIP Perez’s dreams of going top of the table.

We know all F1 fans are sick and tired of the same team winning over and over again but sometimes you just have to sit back and appreciate what Redbull are doing right now. I guess we also have to accept that Verstappen is kinda good… although people will fight to the death saying that its just the car….

Now we hear you:

“BuT wHaT aBOuT tHe oThEr 18 cArS….”

WELL…

Sainz couldn’t make any real gain on the Aston Martin of Alonso and he was eventually caught by Russell in the Mercedes. Things got worse when Sainz came in to pit and got pulled up for speeding in the pit lane (you can’t go over 80km/h in there) and he was slapped in the face with a 5 second penalty **cue Ferrari fans everywhere crying** . This would later be added on to his race time at the end however he had managed to stay far enough ahead of Hamilton in P6 that it didn’t cost him a place.

Hamilton had a great race in a “nasty piece of work” (Toto’s words not ours) car moving through the field like the GOAT driver that he is and he finished a very respectable 6th. With Russell finishing 4th, Miami was about as fruitful for Mercedes as they could possibly have hoped considering their piece of hot trash that they call a car. (lets see if the new floor makes an impact in Imola)

In the other Ferrari, Leclerc finished P7. He spent most of his afternoon fighting with Alpine, Haas and… Alfa Romeo. 🤔 A race he and the Tifosi would like to quickly forget.

 HE DIDN’T CRASH THOUGH SO THATS GOOD.

Alpine had a cracking qualifying session and they reaped the benefits finishing P8 and P9 on the Sunday. (If you know Alpine, this is a great finish).

Kevin Magnussen who found himself starting in P4 to everyones surprise (including himself!) didn’t last long against the juggernauts behind him but he fought hard and earned the last of the points on offer by finishing P10. He held off a menacing Yuki Tsunoda and Lance Stroll in doing so.

A new surface mixed with Florida rain forecasts and a mixed up grid seemed like the perfect recipe for shenanigans and disaster so possibly the biggest surprise of the weekend was that EVERY SINGLE car finished the race.

That is the FIRST time this has happened this season and it happened at a track where nearly EVERYONE was expecting some kind of chaos.

You will see on social media that fans called this race BORING and that the sport is DEAD.

Our response is simply, what MORE do you want?

We ALL want competitive races but that’s on the other 9 teams to get up to speed (ha 😉). This is just how the sport works, see the Schumacher era and the Vettel era and the Hamilton era.

We ARE now in the Verstappen and Red Bull era and in a few years time it will be someone else. (we hope)

WHO is going to step up and claim that place?

THAT’s the question and that’s why we watch and love this sport.

We didn’t see anyone complaining that football was dead when Barcelona dominated Europe or that golf was boring because Tiger Woods was literally beating the game of golf itself.

Chasing the Championship🥇

As noted above, Perez blew it this weekend and now finds himself 14 points behind Verstappen in the Driver’s Championship. He is still 30 points ahead of Alonso in third but this one GOTTA sting.

At the moment it looks like the REAL battle will be for fourth but we’d like to see what Hamilton can do once Mercedes bring their long awaited upgrades to Imola. If given a competitive car that it not completely horrendous to drive then he should start to close that gap between him and the Alonso.

Our money is on him to come out on top of that midfield battle. (oh the difference a new floor can make)

The Ferrari boys will also be desperate for some consistency in their car but neither driver has really shown anything to suggest that they will be able to do anything spectacular even if the car does mellow out.

Redbull have won. There is not much else to say there. They will be taking home 14% of the total prize money pool which is estimated to be worth around £308 million unless something goes seriously wrong.

Each place is literally worth MILLIONS to the teams so for teams like Alpine and McLaren who are trying to catch the bigger teams the difference between 5th and 6th place is momentous.

Here’s the main takeaways from this weekend’s impact for the teams.

ALPINE DOUBLE DOOZY - Quite clearly the best of the rest on the day, this was big points for the team who are now tied for 5th with McLaren in the Constructors Championship. McLaren finished a measly P17 and P19 and are struggling with that Mercedes engine so the French outlet will take massive confidence from this weekend as they look ahead for the rest of the season.

STROLL MISSES OUT ON POINTS - Some may say that Stroll is letting down the team at Aston Martin as he is being completely outshined by his ancient teammate who has made it onto the podium in every race this season so far. Aston Martin clearly have a competitive car on their hands but they need both drivers to be getting in the points if they are going to fend off Mercedes for second place in the Contructor’s.

Overtake of the Race

Moment of the Race 👀

Our moment of the race has to be from father Alonso. While in THIRD PLACE IN A GRAND PRIX… he managed to watch his teammate Stroll with a nice overtake on a nearby big screen! He even went out of his way to ask the team about it….lol show off

Tweet of the Day 🐦