USA has a brand new home favourite
Formula 1 returns to Miami for the first of 3 US races in 2023 and the American crowd has a home favourite to cheer on in the form of Logan Sargeant. Sargeant was born in Fort Lauderdale which for context is 23 minutes away from the Hard Rock Stadium so this is definitely a home race for Logan. Hopefully, the Williams driver can have a good weekend.
Can Carlos Sainz close the gap to his teammate Charles Leclerc in qualifying?
So far this season, Sainz has qualified either 4th or 5th and in the race, he’s finished 4th, 6th, 12th (was running 4th before his time penalty) and 5th. Looking at those stats, it’s fair to say that he’s been pretty consistent. When it comes to his teammate, Sainz is 6 points ahead of Charles Leclerc in the championship and he’s finished ahead of the Monegasque in 3 of the first 4 races so again, that’s a pretty decent start to the season. However, when it comes to the 5 qualifying sessions so far this season (including last weekend’s Sprint Shootout), Leclerc has an average qualifying gap of 0.394 seconds. Yes, Charles is a terrific qualifier, but Carlos really needs to close the gap to his teammate on a Saturday (and sometimes a Friday) as being nearly 4 tenths behind your teammate in Qualifying is not very good.
Red Bull’s striking new livery
When Red Bull revealed their “brand-new car” for 2023, they also announced that they would have 3 different fan liveries for the races in America. With it being the Miami Grand Prix this weekend, Red Bull have announced their new livery for the weekend. I personally really like it and I kind of wish that Red Bull just keep it for the rest of the season as it’s something different.
Valtteri Bottas needs to improve
After 4 races (and a sprint), Valtteri Bottas sits 12th in the championship with 4 points to his name. Those points came in the opening round of the season in Bahrain and since then, he’s been really poor. Bottas has finished 18th, 11th and 18th since Bahrain and he hasn’t qualified higher than 14th. His teammate Zhou Guanyu has also been performing a lot better than his more experienced teammate and Valtteri really needs to sort this out quickly because otherwise, Alfa Romeo/Sauber are going to start losing patience with him.
Will Formula 1 focus on the race or the spectacle?
It’s fair to say that last year, Formula 1 hyped the first-ever Miami Grand Prix weekend up immensely. All sorts of celebrities were around (not Patrick Mahomes though), there were police escorts to the podium and the drivers received special NFL helmets for finishing on the podium. Whilst it might look cool for people that love bright lights and over-the-top things, the race itself was atrocious. Formula 1 and Miami seemed to care more about their fake harbour last year than they did making the track good enough for entertaining racing. It has to be better this year!
My Predictions for Miami Qualifying:
Max Verstappen
Charles Leclerc
Sergio Perez
Fernando Alonso
Carlos Sainz
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