2024 Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix Highlights | Paddock Magazine

Introduction

McLaren driver Lando Norris added his name to the list of Formula 1 race winners with a sensational breakthrough victory at the 2024 Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix. He overhauled Red Bull rival Max Verstappen to take the chequered flag.

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Norris ran sixth in the early stages of the race, with fast-starting teammate Oscar Piastri, the McLaren man who initially looked most likely to cause an upset. However, a Safety Car at the midway point played perfectly into the Briton’s hands after he extended his opening stint.

Norris emerged from the pits in the lead, with Verstappen demoted to second after stopping under normal Racing conditions. Despite an initial attack from the latter at the restart, the Briton managed to maintain the position and then edged clear.

A cool, calm and collected performance thereafter, and balance problems for Verstappen, meant there was no stopping Norris from banishing the demons of his near-miss at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix and becoming a race winner at the 110th time of asking.

Verstappen settled for second amid his relative struggles behind the wheel, while Charles Leclerc completed the podium ahead of Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz, who clashed with Piastri late on in an incident that sent the Australian back into the pits for a new front wing.

Sergio Perez wound up fifth in the second of the Red Bulls, having completed another stop under the Safety Car, as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell salvaged some solid points on a challenging weekend for Mercedes in sixth and eighth respectively.

Yuki Tsunoda gave RB another reward in the seventh, while Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso crossed the line in the ninth. Esteban Ocon capitalised on Piastri’s problems to finish 10th and score the Alpine team’s morale-boosting first point of the season.

Haas had been on course for another top-10 result in the opening exchanges, but Nico Hulkenberg slipped down the order as the race developed, leaving him 11th at the flag from Pierre Gasly’s other Alpine machine.

Piastri battled his way back up to 13th after that aforementioned front wing change, albeit being warned by McLaren not to spark another incident and Safety Car period as Norris led, clearing Zhou Guanyu’s Kick Sauber just before the finish.

After starring in the Sprint, Daniel Ricciardo could do no more than 15th on Grand Prix day, followed by Valtteri Bottas (Kick Sauber) and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), whose fierce battle with Williams rival Alex Albon saw him earn a 10-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.

Albon was the final finisher in 19th, behind the Haas of Kevin Magnussen, who served a 10-second sanction of his own for a collision with Williams driver Logan Sargeant that put the home favourite out of the race.

As the drivers headed back to the pits, Norris’s emotions came out over the radio as he, his race engineer, and team boss Zak Brown revelled in a milestone moment that also gave McLaren its first Grand Prix win since Monza in 2021.

Mario Isola, Motorsport Director, Pirelli:

First, I want to congratulate Lando Norris on his first Formula 1 win. He will never forget his emotions in the final kilometres and then on the podium!

Despite the unexpected twists brought about by the Safety Cars, first the virtual and then the real one, the race followed a surprisingly linear trajectory in terms of tyre behaviour. It was a one-stop strategy, with tyres that, regardless of their band colour, showed minimal degradation, thanks in part to the absence of graining. The performance difference between the cars was also negligible, adding to the race’s unpredictability.

That said, the two compounds most used, the C2 and C3, allowed the drivers to push flat out for almost the entire race, as can be seen from studying the chronology of the lap times. This made for an exciting race, even if, on paper, it was constrained by strategy. The VSC and SC ruined the plans on several pit walls, while others were luckier or cleverer, but that’s all part of Racing.

As always, the post-race analysis holds immense value. The data gathered over the three days of this Grand Prix will provide us with invaluable insights. These insights could guide us in compound selection and enhance our understanding of the intricate interaction between the tyres and various track surfaces. This is the beauty of Formula 1-a sport that offers a constant learning curve, paving the way for continuous progress.

The day on the track:

As easily predicted, the one-stop strategy was the only plausible one, but the Virtual Safety Car on lap 22 and then the real one on lap 28 obviously upset the plans, giving those who had not yet pitted the chance to do so while losing significantly less time than those who had already changed tyres. This reshuffled the pack, and then the order remained relatively static in the early stages after the restart, at least among the leaders.

On the starting grid, the most popular compound was the C3, with 15 drivers going for what, on paper, was the quickest strategy: a first stint on the Medium and a second on the Hard. Hamilton, Alonso, Ricciardo, and Magnussen opted for the C2, hoping to run as long a first stint as possible, while Bottas gambled on the C4.

A total of 1110 laps were completed, with only Sargeant (Williams) failing to finish the race. The C3 did the most work (562 laps, 50.6%) with slightly higher mileage than the C2 (504 laps, 45.4%). The C4 was only used by the two Sauber drivers, Bottas for the first 11 laps and Zhou from his pit stop to the chequered flag, and it proved to be up to the task both in terms of degradation and performance.

Apart from the sight of a brand new Formula 1 race winner on the podium in the shape of Lando Norris, there was also a novelty when it came to the Podium Cap, which Pirelli provides to the top three finishers in the Grand Prix, as well as the representative of the winning team, who today was McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella. For the Miami event, Formula 1’s Global Tyre Partner prepared a special cap in turquoise, a colour suggesting the waters in front of the city’s beaches, along with stylised palm trees on the peak, an emblematic element of Miami, alongside the flag of the United States of America.

2024 Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix Race Results

2024 Constructor Standings

Here are the team-by-team highlights: