F1 Teardown: Miami GP 2023
Jackie throws Heismans, New paddock, Billionaires, and boring racing again?
Miami Nice or Naughty?
270,000 fans were in attendance this weekend, roughly 30,000 more than last year; that’s a solid gain.
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross debuted his new $100 million, 190,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art permanent Paddock Club. The new setup provided 2 paddocks for the teams; on-field hospitality suites for teams and an engineering paddock. It looked like a great experience after the complaints last year of a “crowded” paddock life for all participants and media alike.
Miami brings the best heeled out. Celebrities & billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Roger Federer, Tom Cruise, Patrick Mahomes, and Serena Williams were seen at Hard Rock Stadium throughout the weekend.
New to the event was the “grid spectacular” or an extended 10-minute period on the pre-grid for driver “intros”. Miami went full WWE style, letting LL Cool J introduce each driver.
I think just about everyone on the internet had an opinion as the reactions varied. From appearance, only Hamilton was truly at home with the energy of the whole deal.
An overstimulated Ferrari driver, Leclerc, did provide fans with an upside down starting lineup after spinning late in qualifying setting up what many thought might be a chaotic race. The odd circumstance cut Q3 short leaving 3 Spanish speaking drivers as the top for the first time in F1’s history while the favorite Verstappen started P9.
Neither the threat of chaos nor rain would occur, instead, it was a Sunday drive for most while Verstappen, possibly fueled by the fan’s boos in during intros, drove right through the field with tenacity, to take the win and claim his 38th career victory.
Perez, almost 10 km/h slower on the longest straight than his teammate, was embarrassed by Verstappen as his day ended as poorly as it started. You were a naughty boy Perez, according to the FIA.
Perez exhibited poor race pace and was beaten by a car that started P9. The last F1 driver to accomplish such a feat was Niki Lauda in France 1984. Only 3 others have won from P9 before Niki (Maurice Trintigant - Monaco 1955, John Surtees - Italy 1967 & Jody Scheckter - Canada 1977).
What Verstappen pulled off was special really, and unexpected by most, except himself. The kid absolutely believes in himself; a must for a great driver.
The team celebrated with one of the best post race photos you will see all season.
Following up the Red Bull duo was once again the old man himself, Alonso with a P3. That’s 4 podiums in 5 races for Aston Martin; far exceeding their own expectations.
Alonso even took the time—during the race— to check on his teammate, via the jumbotron in turn 11, and complimented young Stroll (P12) on his passing skills.
That man’s brain capacity inside an F1 car is unreal.
Mercedes posted a solid result, and showed improvement, including the ability to pass as Russell (P4) and Hamilton (P6) walked away with smiles. Russell even had some great in-car commentary hinting that he was having a fun day on track. He had tried out a newly designed steering rack in FP1 and hated how “heavy” the steering was; safe to say the old rack did just fine.
Sainz Jr. (P5) and Leclerc (P7) weren’t a threat to anyone but themselves. Both need to realize that if the speed isn’t in the car then don’t push. Besides Miami isn’t a good track for a car that enjoys low drag conditions.
Alpine after being blasted by their CEO earlier in the week posted much needed points. Gasly (P8) and Ocon (P9) took multiple practices to sort out Baku’s floor upgrades and showed improved race pace.
"I am noticing, not only an evident lack of performance and rigour at work, but also with a potential mood that is not up to the past standards of this team."
"I didn't like the first grand prix, because there was a lot of, excuse me for saying it, dilettantism or amateurism, choose the word that sounds better, which led to a result that was not right, that was mediocre, bad."
Their CEO, Laurent Rossi, is on point; this is a “works” (or factory) team that should be battling with the other top factory teams, instead, they are hardly relevant in the “best of the rest” discussion. We could see leadership changes occur soon if results sag.
Rounding out the points was the lone American team, Haas, on home turf. Magnussen (P10) and Hülkenberg (P15) managed one point between them making that ride home between team boss Steiner and car owner, Gene Haas, more comfortable.
Sky Sports was embedded with the team all weekend in an effort to promote the teams 150th GP later this month; be on the lookout for the special.
The big American hope was local kid Logan Sargeant in his first ever US based car race—prior US experience is karting only.
He shouldered the responsibility of being the “host” driver outside the car, but inside it was a disaster. Unable to gain balance of the car in practice, Logan started & finished last, or P20. For comparison, his teammate, Albon (P14), wasn’t fast either. We need to give the American rookie a break; it was his first time at the track and the car characteristics aren’t aligned for a tight, slippery track like Miami.
McLaren was once again a dumpster fire, but at least Piastri was able to eat food this weekend. Watching Norris (P17) field the same questions about the car’s poor performance is hysterical; he can’t even keep a straight face at this point.
If you’re a McLaren fan just pack it up and wait till next year; everything they are working on is for 2024 and beyond. Just look at Piastri’s day; he suffered from a long brake pedal—not good—for most of the race because of a software issue that couldn’t be fixed over the air. Brutal.
Alpha Tauri posted there same old, similiar results. Mister consistently missing the points, Tsunoda, was once again P11, while de Vries had another weekend to forget at P18. I really feel for de Vries at this point, but at least he’s driving an F1 car around the globe.
Bottas (P13) and Zhou (P16) round out the final running order with the Swiss team continuing to be positive despite no points on the day.
Big win for the weekend was Jackie Stewart. The 83 year old Scot was not going to be defied by security as he walked into the driver’s area pre-grid to grab tennis great, Roger Federer, for Martin Brundle to interview. He was not going to told no by anyone as he was only trying to help out his long time friend. Roger was gracious even when George Russell interrupted to get a hug in.
Characters like Jackie is one of the reason I love this sport.
The biggest L for the weekend? A pricey menu.
I guess that’s what you get when your fast growing sport on the planet.
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali was present at the WSJ Formula 1 summit in Miami, and mentioned two great stats that show insight into the sports growth over the last few years:
1 out of every 3 F1 fans started following the sport in the last 4 years
40% of all F1 fans are now women
Pretty dang cool.
Important Notes, or Not
F1 brass are pushing for a third of the calendar to host sprint races. I think this is mistake, but let’s see if it happens first.
Mercedes has major upgrades coming to Imola and Toto shared his thoughts.
“[I am hoping] we can go more to a stable platform, and then we should see where the baseline is and what we can do from there.”
“What we're doing is we're introducing a new bodywork, and we're introducing a new floor and we're doing a new front suspension and that's pretty large. That's a pretty large operation. Large surgery. It’s going to be a lot of learning in the virtual world, where it is good lap time.”
“That's why the upgrade that we're bringing is going to help us to set the direction, and to understand the various areas that we believe could play a role in why the car is so poisonous to drive," he said.
The new Mercedes front suspension should be interesting. I need to write more on this, but front suspension is a big key to getting the car to work around these new regulations. It turns out Adrian Newey designed Red Bull’s suspension this year, and it’s a very big deal because this isn’t an area of the car he normally plays with.
I mentioned the Ferrari aero brain drain last week, and you can always rely on poor reporting from the Italian media so I need to correct something. According to Gazzetta dello Sport, Ferrari did NOT manage to sign Pierre Waché and Enrico Balbo like reported. Negotiations with Balbo quickly came to an end when it turned out that Balbo wanted to stay in Milton Keynes with Red Bull.
Helmut Marko with some rare words on Sergio Perez:
"Don't underestimate Sergio. He changed a lot since he came to us. He started working!"
"Before, he was a Mexican race driver who was enjoying life. He still does, but he does the necessary work."
"He is the most successful driver from Mexico now, and they have a long history and good drivers."
It was reported last week Brad Pitt will be driving a real F1 car alongside the other 20 drivers starting at Silverstone.
Jerry Bruckheimer and Joseph Kosinski will enter an “11th team” to be able to fill on track scenes for the rest of the season.
The car has been designed by Mercedes and is already testing. As are the actors, in sim and real life.
It’s not a real F1 car though; the car is a F2 car that has been heavily modified with F1 looking body composites.
Also the car will on track between F1 sessions during the weekend. No Colton Herta, Brad Pitt will not be in the actual race and does not have enough SuperLicense points.
Lewis Hamilton is in daily communication and is advising on storyline and script to ensure it’s the most accurate racing film ever made.
They’ve spent 18 months taking what they learned on Top Gun Maverick to develop the smallest moveable 6k camera ever designed to take the viewer into the cockpit. A cockpit in which their stars will actually drive.
A new South-Asian entry that goes by the name of LKY SUNZ will bid for a spot on the 2025-26 F1 grid.
The project’s CEO Benjamin Durand was the co-founder of Panthera and splits from his co-founder Michel Orts who stays at Panthera.
Their main investment comes from Asia and from the US.
The application deadline for potential teams is May 15.
The American entry of Andretti Global is submitting their paperwork this week, and Michael Andretti is expecting a decision in mid-July, but he confirmed they are full steam ahead and shooting for being on the grid in 2025.