2024 Miami GP: Post Race Analysis

A little help from the SC, some different tire strategies and a new winner made the Miami GP a great race to watch. TV Director failed at capturing any of the passing live though. Interpretation of the rules remains to be a trouble spot for F1.

McLaren back on top with Lando Norris winning his first race. They brought a huge upgrade package and all signs say the updates are working well. Oddly Oscar only got half the upgrades, while Lando got the full one plus spares. Have these upgrades made the car on par with Red Bull? Both drivers looked to be ahead of Perez on pure pace, and Lando with the full upgrades was faster than Max in the race. Have to give all the credit in the world to the team for finding such massive performance gains in a relatively short time, and Lando Norris for having a brilliant race from start to finish and actually delivering.

Red Bull perhaps had an off weekend, which is nice to see as a fan. Max has finally been beaten in a fair race. 2nd place on a bad day shows his place in the championship still isn't really challenged. Perez perhaps gave a better representation of where Red Bull were this weekend. He is flat out lucky he didn't take out Max or Sainz in his turn 1 brake lockup, or when he carelessly rejoined.

Ferrari had a solid race. Another podium for Charles. Sainz did look to be the faster driver in the opening stint, yet Ferrari chose not to let Sainz go by. Carlos post race even felt like if he pitted during the SC that he had the pace to win. Interesting comments. Hats off to the 1.9 second pit stop by Ferrari. That was incredible.

Mercedes I thought were bringing upgrades to Miami, but any changes weren't very big. However the car looked to be more in its window, at least in Sunday's race. Hamilton drove a good race. In clean air he was quite fast, just the car couldn't make passes down the straights. It was difficult for everyone though. On the start Lewis compromised Russell into T1 and then pushed him off track. It went unnoticed by Sky Sports. Russell never had track position all race, though he admits his pace wasn't as good as Lewis' today.

RB Visa had a bit of a roller coaster weekend. A fantastic drive by Yuki, one of the stars of the day easily. Ricciardo was a headlight for a big Sprint race, but came back to reality to deliver a terrible qualifying which led to a horrible race. We all want the best for Daniel, but a 1 in 5 decent result is just not good enough.

Aston Martin was the first team to bring a big upgrade, and their decent to worse performance appears to have started. The car just didn't have any grip all weekend. Alonso is as good as it gets to adapting to race cars, but he struggled a lot through the weekend. No pace in either qualis. However he is still Fernando Alonso and he always finds a way to get the most out of the car. 9th place is pretty impressive for what the car gave him today. Lance Stroll had the pace this weekend, but his own mistake cost him in the Sprint and he just got outdrove during the Grand Prix. I thought he got hosed by the Stewards. He made a strong move around the outside and was pushed off track with nowhere to go but made the pass. It's crazy to expect him to give the position back when he earned the space on the outside and was in the process of passing.

Alpine have made giant leaps since the start of the season. From being dead last to points is something they should be proud of. Super hard racing between Ocon and Gasly. Was expecting to see both cars in the wall. Luckily they kept it clean and were rewarded with a point.

Haas looked to have the pace for points, but similar to last year they kept dropping back as the race went on. Hulk did the best he could. Magnussen had a lot of talk surrounding his driving. A subject of controversy in the Grand Prix as well. He has been ultra aggressive but his penalty was not deserved. He had his car alongside Logan well before they collided. Logan simply squeezed KMag with nowhere to go at very high speed and it caused a wreck. For the Stewards to immediately give a 10 second penalty to Magnussen is ridiculous. Rewind to Saturday when the Stewards could not make a decision on a 10 kph speeding penalty to Hamilton, but finger snapped a 10 second penalty to KMag when it wasn't even his fault is nuts. Sure does support Alonso's complaints about bias.

Stake Sauber didn't quite have the pace today. Not terribly far off, but in a game of tenths, they were a just not fast enough to fight for points. The drivers must have been on very different strategies as they were miles apart most of the race, but finished just 3 seconds apart.

Williams had a rough day. Albon was never in it for points and Logan still showing he doesn't deserve to be in F1.

Driver of the Day: Lando Norris. Had a good car and went for the win. Anyone that pulls a gap on Max Verstappen has done a brilliant job. A+ and well deserved win.

 

I don't think Max had damage. He would have mentioned it or the team would have said something long ago. Verstappen wasn't exactly gapping the field prior to hitting the bollard. The fact he made that mistake even suggest he and car was not in the sweet spot like usual.

 

Interesting, I didn't know this.

 

Why try and bring up 2021? Pretty sure we are talking about 2024 after Max has won 21 of the last 22 races he has finished.

 

Kevin was already beside Logan going into the corner. It's not like Magnussen dived in there at 150 mph. His front nose/front tires was alongside Logan's head. Logan simply turned into him.

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Not sure your point is coming across very well. Lando was faster than a dominant Max who has had the best car. The 2024 Red Bull has been pretty much unbeatable until today. So DOTD well deserved to Lando.

You saying it's all about the car in an example where Lewis drove away with a dominant Mercedes doesn't exactly relate to today.

Maybe I'm just not understanding what you mean.

 

It's very likely without the SC, Lando doesnt win.

Horner also said a piece of tape significantly cost Perez performance. So who knows. Either way, Lando did pull out about 6 seconds on Max, when usually Max easily finds a 2 or 3 seconds within a couple laps and then stretches it out to a 15-30 second win without pushing the car.