Jolyon Palmer analyzes the start of the race in Miami

As a rule, the start of the Grand Prix determines the entire further course of the race, and sometimes the result, and the stage in Miami was no exception in this regard. Former Formula 1 driver and now F1 TV pundit Jolyon Palmer analyzed what it was like…

So the start of the Miami Grand Prix: Sergio Perez started the race from pole position and Fernando Alonso’s car was next to him. It was the same in Jeddah, where Alonso managed to take the lead, so now Perez was trying to prevent this from happening again.

He immediately moved to the right in front of Fernando and defended his position. In general, all the riders who started from the front rows did it very carefully, but some maneuvers took place behind them. First of all, Kevin Magnussen, who started fourth, found himself between two rivals – Pierre Gasly was riding on his left and George Russell broke forward on his right.

Lewis Hamilton was also in a “sandwich” between Alex Albon’s Williams and Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas, and this situation will escalate a little later.

Magnussen lost a few positions in the first corner, although everyone else, who started from the front rows, kept their position. In addition, the cars of Hamilton and Hulkenberg were very close to each other, but the incident was avoided.

Magnussen didn’t start in the best way, causing the drive wheels to slip excessively, so Gasly overtook his Haas immediately and, braking for the first corner, Kevin also missed George Russell, who again performed a very good maneuver, ahead of the Dane down the inside radius . Magnussen will also make way for Charles Leclerc in the future.

Minor contact with Hamilton still happened. Albon started ahead of him and Lewis started the race on hard tyres, which provided slightly less grip than the Medium tires many other riders started on.

In fact, the same hard tires were on Hulkenberg’s Haas. Albon, driving on the left, left some space for Lewis on track, but Hulkenberg’s car was on the right and his Haas came close to the seven-time world champion’s Mercedes. Niko couldn’t do anything in this situation, he tried to level the car and avoid contact, but still Lewis’ right front wheel touched Niko’s right rear tire slightly, but without consequences.

A careful analysis of the take-off video shows how difficult it was to pilot on the Miami circuit. Hamilton came close to leading Hulkenberg into Turn 4, who started on the same hard tyres, but failed, which slowed Lewis’ progress considerably, and he was trapped behind the Haas car for a long time.

In this corner, the Mercedes driver took the outer trajectory, but to do so he had to turn right, and outside the main trajectory the grip was worse. As a result, the car started to skid and Hamilton almost lost control of the car in the corner.

The moment was quite sharp and Oscar Piastri took advantage of it, who was also ahead of Hamilton, albeit not by long, as he battled with his car in Turns 6, 7 and 8.

In general, the start went smoothly, with the exception of one episode that took place in the tail of the pack. As you know in Miami there was no safety car on the track and no yellow flags, although Nick de Vries, the AlphaTauri racer, was about to be the culprit for their performance.

Before Turn 1, Nick was overtaken by Lando Norris, who started on soft rubber and made excellent use of the grip it offered. Lando approached the corner and started braking, and the soft tires not only grip well, but also work effectively under braking. And although Norris braked carefully enough, de Vries, who followed him, could not slow down.

He made a student error when he tried to brake from directly behind Norris’ McLaren. If you go a little to the left or a little to the right, problems could have been avoided and his car didn’t have enough downforce. In addition, we know that this year the turbulence zone behind the cars has also become worse than in 2022.

All these factors combined, plus under-heated tyres, led to Nick locking up the wheels under braking, losing control of the car and crashing into the rear of Norris’ McLaren. Both lost ground, but somehow their cars survived and they continued the race.

Probably De Vries could have been fined for this incident, and most likely would have been had everything happened closer to the front rows. Basically, it was Nick who made a mistake that was responsible for the incident. In general, McLaren’s idea of ​​starting on soft tires was based on the hope that this rubber would allow them to break into the front from the back rows, but this incident put Norris in the tail of the pack. In the end, neither he nor de Vries scored points.

“Lando got off to a great start, initially parallel to my car, but as we approached turn 1 very quickly he was in front of me and I just locked the wheels on the brakes and that made contact and we had to pull back. … out of the track ”, admitted the AlphaTauri rider after the finish.