What is at stake at the Miami F1 Grand Prix

After a brutal section of five races in six weeks, the teams have been able to take stock and regroup for the second Sprint weekend of the year at the Miami Autodrome. These are the main issues to take into account.

Can Norris recover the impulse in the place of his first victory?

In its first three editions, the race around Hard Rock Stadium of the Miami Dolphins has barely become a classic for its scarce show on the track. The event has been more important for reasons outside the track, since the F1 intends to continue reinforcing its presence in the United States.

But last year history became, with Lando Norris getting his first victory in F1 for McLaren, announcing the beginning of a new era for the team, since a large improvement package transformed it again into a giant capable of being a champion.

McLaren began the 2025 season where he left it, getting four victories of five, and it could be said that Max Verstappen would also have won in Japan. But while Norris struggles to adapt to a very different car, his teammate, Oscar Piastri, threatens to steal the prominence as the greatest candidate for the title of McLaren, winning three races against Norris’s only victory in Melbourne.

In the absence of 19 races -a full season does not do so much -, the 10 points of advantage of Piastri mean nothing. What is significant is whether the young Australian can follow a streak, and if Norris can find his mojo and offer cleaner weekends in the MCL39. Norris was more comfortable in Saudi Arabia than in Bahrain, despite his expensive clash in the classification session, but both he and the team need to take another step to work at full performance.

Is Miami a conducive circuit for Red Bull?

The greatest enigma of F1 2025 is the state of Red Bull form. The team was absolutely anywhere in Bahrain, while Verstappen followed its Heroicities of Suzuka with more way capable of winning races in Saudi Arabia, frustrated by a overtaking of Piastri in the first round – and a five -second time penalty resulting from leaving the track to keep the driver of McLaren behind.

Throughout the first five weekends some clear trends have emerged. McLaren has the car faster, but can fly to competition in hot and abrasive circuits, where its superior management of rear tires is far rewarded. when the races are characterized by low degradation and a unique stop in Pits, McLaren cannot flex both his muscle, and the intrinsic rhythm of Red Bull makes it a opponent capable in the hands of Verstappen, as long as the team manages to maintain the balance of their car in a reasonable window.

Significant improvements of Red Bull will continue in Icola, so for now you will have to continue with the execution of your team on the track and the brilliance of Verstappen. Miami is interesting in that regard. Pirelli brings the same range of softer yeda tire compounds: C3, C4 and C5. Together with the heat of Miami, thermal degradation and overheating will be a problem.

If the overheating of the back of the softest compound C5 will be a factor on a return, then McLaren will have a great advantage in the classification. But the Miami Grand Prix is ​​traditionally a career at a single stop, so the degradation of the compounds in the race tends to be under control. Pirelli hopes that the change to a softer compound can force the teams to make two stops in boxes, but how to advance is difficult in Miami, the teams will want to avoid an extra stop and keep the position on the track if possible.

The change to the softer compounds did not work for Mercedes in Yeda, where he had a particularly poor career rhythm that did not reflect his strong start of the season so far. The team ensures that it has learned many lessons of the Saudi Arabian race and that they can apply them in Miami, where the same tire compounds and the same temperatures will be used.

While Andrea Kimi Antonelli continues to learn and alternate impressive performances for more disastrous weekends, George Russell is at the best moment of her life, and her state supports the best start of the year of the team in the difficult was the soil effect.

Ferrari has also been a kind of enigma, with a promising appearance in the winter tests to plumn since then, apart from Hamilton’s surprising victory in the China Sprint and the first podium of the Leclerc season in Yeda. As in the case of Red Bull, Ferrari’s first important update will have to wait for Icola and Barcelona, ​​where the goal will be to add aerodynamic load to SF-25.

Meanwhile, Leclerc and above all Hamilton will have to settle for what they have. Hamilton has not had a good time with these cars of soil effect since 2022, but in the last races aboard the Ferrari he has really been in a fallen layer. The lack of rear stability has greatly reduced his confidence in the car, and Yeda showed few signs of an imminent response. The improvements in the car are more than necessary.

Who marks the rhythm in the middle zone?

Williams leads the battle of the midfield with the fifth position among the builders thanks to the fact that their two pilots scored in Yeda, but the team has already admitted that it has largely closed the development tap and is fully focused on next year. That makes its five -point advantage over Haas even more precarious than it seems, so Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz will have to take advantage of these first races to defend and even build an advantage.

Fortunately for Williams, none of its direct rivals has been consistently convincing and, instead, points have been removed. Haas has taken advantage of his opportunities brilliantly to maintain the sixth position with 20 points, while teams such as Alpine and Racing Bulls seem to have more potential than their results have shown, as demonstrated by the excellent seventh position of Pierre Gasly in Bahréin and the Gesta of Isack Hadjar in Japan.

The sprint format returns

Miami is also the second of the six Sprint weekends of the year, which means that the teams will have less margin of error. A reminder of the new Sprint weekend format: will have a single training session on Friday before moving directly to the Sprint classification. After the 19 -morning sprint race on Saturday morning, the cards are shuffled again, since the teams can make more set -up changes in the classification of the Grand Prix on Saturday afternoon.

This window of change of adjustments is more indulgent than with the old format, and the teams will have more reliable data of the Sprint race on Saturday morning to make decisions about piloting height and other parameters. But this means that the teams and pilots who have a slow beginning of the weekend or miss the FP1 will be punished. A Sprint surprise winner is not ruled out, as seen in Shanghai when Hamilton won a victory that now seems very distant.