May 9, 2023
I am back (not just back for a few weeks and then disappear for a month, I am back to consistently posting again). In the time that I was gone, we celebrated one year of Paddock Update! This has been an amazing experience so far and I am so proud of how far the blog has come in just one year. I mean, it went from me just texting the link to my family and friends, to IndyCar champion Will Power liking my posts on Instagram! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has supported Paddock Update and read even a sentence of my work. It truly means so much to me.
Now, onto the racing bit. This weekend was the Miami Grand Prix. Hooray. It felt more like a testing weekend because sessions were not super action packed, but I am not sure if that is because F1 has been a little boring this year or because it was the Miami race. Either way, here is your 2023 Miami Grand Prix weekend recap:
Free Practice: May 5-6, 2023
Practice was not very eventful this time around. It took Sergio Perez some time to get used to this track but by FP2, Red Bull was setting the pace. Mercedes shocked us by going P1 and P2 during the first practice, but their pace dropped off during the other two sessions. Ferrari was consistently at the top of the time charts though, with at least one of the cars in the top three of every session. McLaren decided to tease me when Lando Norris went P6 during FP2 and then straight back down to P19 for FP3. Once again, the papaya team showed us that they have some speed and everything else is broken. Alpine, however, gave us a pleasant surprise by staying in the top ten in every session. Perhaps the good performance they keep talking about is coming this weekend.
Qualifying: May 6, 2023
The scorching heat of Miami made for an extra hot track that spiced up Qualifying.
Q1:
Both Haas cars were at risk of elimination, but they pulled off some incredible laps to get to the safe zone. Kevin Magnussen went P5 and just four-tenths off of the pace, and Nico Hulkenberg went P9 and six-tenths off the pace.
Eliminated: Norris (P16), Tsunoda (P17), Stroll (P18), Piastri (P19), Sargeant (P20)
Lando Norris was, once again, just not lucky. With both McLaren’s out in Q1, I have no hope for the race.
It is strange that Lance Stroll only qualified P18 because he is in an Aston Martin, which is objectively one of the best cars on the grid right now.
Q2:
Both Mercedes were in the elimination zone late into the session, but Russell was able to save himself and go P10 on his final flying lap.
Eliminated: Albon (P11), Hulkenberg (P12), Hamilton (P13), Zhou (P14), De Vries (P15)
Hamilton was a shock elimination, but the team left his final lap until the last minute and he wasn’t able to get through the track without traffic.
Q3:
At this point in qualifying, there were ten drivers from seven different teams. I think that is a testament to how close the midfield is this year.
The wind started to ramp up at this point, making conditions quite difficult to drive in.
With one minute and thirty-six seconds left of the session, Leclerc spun at Turn 4 and went into the barriers, causing a Red Flag. Since there wasn’t enough time for the session to resume after a Red Flag, Qualifying was over. This meant that Sergio Perez’s early flying lap got him pole position, Alonso was P2, and Sainz was P3.
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Leclerc's Ferrari in the barriers after his Qualifying crash |
Leclerc and Verstappen had both suffered from oversteer on their first flying laps, leaving them in P7 and P9 respectively.
Kevin Magnussen got P4 because of Leclerc’s crash. Not only is that a great result for Haas, but it means he out-qualified Hulkenberg and got revenge for him taking Mick’s seat at the team.
Race: May 7, 2023
Sunday’s race day started with rain washing away the rubber that had been laid down throughout the weekend, making it much harder for drivers to find grip during the race. The conditions during the race itself were dry, but the wind from Qualifying had returned.
The race start saw all three tire compounds in action. McLaren stupidly started on softs, hoping they would get warmer and allow for a better race start. Drivers who had a poor Qualifying – Ocon, Verstappen, Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Zhou, Tsunoda, and Stroll – started on hards with the aim of going long and overcutting their opponents. All of the front runners were on Mediums and going for the undercut.
Sergio Perez got away well with Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz maintaining their positions in P2 and P3, respectively. Something went wrong for KMag’s and he dropped from his dream start in P4 to P7, allowing Gasly, Russell, and Leclerc to get ahead. Hamilton stayed in P13 and, in true Hamilton style, was already complaining on the team radio about something being wrong with the car. At the back of the pack, Nyck de Vries locked up on the straight down to Turn 1 and hit the back of Norris. Both cars were ok, but this made Lando lose track position.
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De Vries' locking up and going into the back of Norris |
Within the first few laps, hometown boy Logan Sargeant was pitting to repair damage he picked up in a scrap with Stroll’s Aston Martin. Sargeant's nightmare home grand prix weekend was continuing as he came out in last and .75s off the car in front. McLaren also had to pit early because of their stupidity in choosing softs. The compound was proving to be unreliable and both McLarens came in to switch to hard compound tires.
By Lap 12, Max Verstappen had gone from P9 to P2 and he was now hunting down his teammate for the lead. Verstappen, however, was on hard tires and had the ability to extend his first stint. His teammate Sergio Perez was on mediums and would have to pit soon.
Carlos Sainz was the first of the front-runners to pit when he switched from mediums to hards on Lap 19. The Spaniard subsequently picked up a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Since he was going for the one stop strategy, it was expected that Sainz would just serve the penalty at the end of the race and have the five seconds added on to his final race time. Two laps later, on Lap 21, Perez pitted for hards and released his teammate into the lead.
Around Lap 35, the yet-to-pit Hamilton listened to team orders and let his teammate George Russell through into P7. Russell was then able to quickly overtake Ocon and Sainz to get into the top four. Meanwhile, Leclerc struggled to overtake Kevin Magnussen for P9. The Ferrari would overtake the Haas down the straight, and then the Haas would come back at one of the following corners and retake the position. The two swapped positions for a while before Leclerc was finally able to make the move stick.
At last, with eleven laps remaining, Verstappen finally pitted from his destroyed hard compounds to the mediums. He had built up enough of a margin on his teammate to come out of the pitlane in P2 and just behind Perez. Even though Perez brought out his Minister of Defense moves and covered off Verstappen for a few corners, Verstappen retook the lead by Lap 47 because he had much fresher tires. The rest of the race was quite easy for the Dutchman and he went on to win the Miami Grand Prix. Perez came in P2 to make it yet another Red Bull 1-2 finish. Alonso, who had driven a lonely race, picked up the final podium position to make it four podiums in five races. This is an amazing feat for Aston Martin considering they could barely make it out of Q1 last year.
Even with his penalty, Sainz finished in P5 and his teammate Charles Leclerc ended up in P7. Alpine had an amazing weekend by coming in P8 and P9. Kevin Magnussen held Yuki Tsunoda off to come home in P10, picking up the final point of the race. KMag was not pleased with this result though because he had started in P4 and expected more than just one point. Poor Logan Sargeant’s horrible weekend at home persisted through the race and he ended up lapped and in dead last. Better luck next time Large Sarge.
Honorable Mentions:
This weekend saw two amazing special edition helmet designs. Last year Lando Norris had a basketball helmet, so to continue with the theme he made a beach ball helmet!
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Lando and his two beach balls |
Alex Albon’s helmet was probably one of the best of all time though. This comes second to his Albon Pets helmet from last year. He designed a golf ball helmet in honor of his girlfriend, Lily Muni He, who is a pro LPGA golfer. Isn’t that just adorable!
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Alex's girlfriend hitting a "golf ball" |
As I said before, the race was quite lonely for Alonso. It was so lonely and boring, that he was watching other parts of the race on the big screen as he drove around the track. At one point, he went on the team radio to congratulate his teammate on an amazing overtake. Only Fernando Alonso would be able to drive an F1 car to a podium position and watch his teammate’s race at the same time.
The Miami Grand Prix was slightly better than I expected it to be, but it was still quite horrid. I am sorry, but I will never get behind the Miami race. The only American F1 event I might actually look forward to is Austin because it is placed at the perfect time in the season when the championship fight really starts to get intense and the track allows for good racing between the contenders. Wow, Miami must have been really bad for me to consider Austin tolerable. Anyway, some key takeaways from this race were Red Bull is still on top, Alonso wants to win races now instead of just podium, McLaren is still goofing around instead of delivering the good results they promised, and Ferrari’s car just isn’t as good anymore.
I will be back next week for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix! This was the first F1 race I ever wrote about, so this is going to be a pretty special one for me.
I promise, I will actually return this time.
- Divya
Where I got these
from: