F1 Grand Prix, GP Miami, Miami

Despite complaining about the balance of his car, Max Verstappen has scored a perfect four out four first places in all four sessions held so far at the Miami Grand Prix. However, the grand prix could offer some challenges as tyres have been very sensitive to the track conditions over the course of the opening two day at the Miami Grand Prix.

The three dry tyre compounds chosen by Pirelli for this round are in the midrange: C2 as Hard C3 as Medium and C4 as Soft. The track was resurfaced before last year’s race and is very smooth, therefore offering quite low grip, a feature compounded by the fact it is not used for any other motorsport events. This leads to a very significant track evolution and graining could put in an appearance, particularly with the Medium and Soft tyres.

As for Saturday's sprint race, the medium was the main tyre of choice for teams and drivers with 18 drivers covering the 19 laps on the middle of three compounds brought to Miami by Pirelli. The only exceptions were Tsunoda and Sargeant who opted for the Soft. Despite the high temperatures, which again today exceeded the 55° C mark, the performance of the C4 was more than acceptable.

Qualifying confirmed some aspects of what had already emerged yesterday afternoon. Track conditions improved up to around halfway through the session, after which they pretty much stabilised, so that only a few of the drivers who had made it to the top ten were able to improve on their second runs.

In fact, the performance difference over a flying lap between the C3 and C4, of the order of three to four tenths, was significantly less than the simulations going into this event and also when seen against the usual comparison between these two compounds. It explains why Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell reverted to the C3 to try and move up the order on the starting grid, a rather rare occurrence.

Strategies

Tyres have shown a very awkward behavior so far this weekend. It was not down to any issues with Pirelli’s products, but the surface of the Miami International Autodrome. The track made its debut two years ago, but it has already been resurfaced.

The even surface and the extremely high track temperatures meant that tyres have hardly degraded so far this weekend, but they quickly overheated. Alexander Albon went on to claim that the soft tyres only lasted a few corners on his hot lap before reaching very high temperatures.

But he was not the only driver to complain about overheating. The sudden increase of surface temperatures meant that cars were sliding which was particularly easy to recognize in the slow-speed chicane of Turn 14-15.

Despite th high surface temperatures, the degradation has been quite low that is why Pirelli expects the majority of the field to execute a one-stop strategy in today’s Miami round.

The Milan-based outfit thinks that the optimal strategy would be to start the 57-lap race on the medium to have optimal grip at the start. The first stint could be extended until Lap 15-21 which would be then followed by a change to Pirelli’s hard compound.

Those who start from the back of the grid could elect to start on the hards. It would require a long first stint before making the switch to the yellow-banded compound until the end of the grand prix. This strategy variation would be optimal for those who start out of position, including the two Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, who only qualified in P7 and P8 or Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.

With Visa RB driver Yuki Tsunoda having completed the 19-lap sprint race on the softs without any major issues, the red-walled tyre might also be viable to start on. It would offer a slightly earlier pit stop window though.