Miami Grand Prix: Free practice on Friday

First part of free practice

Sunny. Dry. Air +30C, orbit +49C

While there was only one training session in the last stage with the sprint on Saturday in Baku and it turned out to be shortened due to red flags, in Miami the teams had the opportunity to fully work with new products during three sessions of free races.

Five of the ten teams brought new items to the American stage. At Ferrari in particular, a series of car upgrades began. Alpine continued to work with a new bottom, tested in Baku. The circuit around the stadium in Miami can hardly be called a test, but this is the only opportunity to test for a series of three Grands Prix in a row that will start the European part of the season.

Like last year, the cars were slipping, the normal grip was only on the track, but this only added to the interest.

For the first set of laps everyone went to Hard and Medium, Soft remained until the second half of practice, when the tarmac was covered with used rubber. On cold tyres, Verstappen and Perez drove off the track in the first corner. On the first lap, Russell complained about the steering and lost half the session while the mechanics changed the steering rack. De Vries turned around – he waited for the rivals to pass and continued.

After half an hour the riders started to switch to Soft in short heats, which affected the results.

Before the 33rd minute, the session was interrupted by red flags. Nico Hulkenberg crashed the car after hitting the barrier after flipping at turn two. The car with the broken suspension had to be evacuated, the barrier repaired – the break lasted nine minutes, then the riders took off again – and almost everyone chose Soft for the last attempts.

George Russell took the lead with a final lap time of 1:30.125.

Results of the first session