Perez brands Miami track surface “a joke” as drivers fear poor race

Throughout practice and qualifying drivers found that there is no grip if they stray off the rubbered-in racing line.

The consensus is that the prospect of an entertaining race will be compromised because drivers cannot move off line to attempt a pass.

“I think most importantly the surface is a joke,” said Perez when asked by Autosport if there will be any passing in the race.

“Tomorrow the racing is going be difficult. And you’re going to have the drivers making mistakes because we’ve been put into this situation.”

In addition to Perez’s comments, Fernando Alonso said that the track surface was “not F1 standards”, while Lando Norris suggested that it was “not good enough.”

Alonso revealed that the subject had been discussed in Friday night’s drivers’ briefing, and that the lack of grip had not improved on Saturday.

“It’s still very difficult to go offline,” he said. “There’s like rubble out of line, so it’s going to be difficult. We said yesterday that the track, the tarmac, is not F1 standards.

“Nothing we can do. I think this weekend we need to put the show, but this has to change for next year. It’s very difficult to race like this.”

McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo agreed that it was not possible to stray off the racing line.

“You literally have to just stay on that one line,” he said. “Otherwise, you’re not not really on the track anymore.

“So actually instead of kind of making it a kind of a good challenge, it just makes it a little bit, in a way, like one-dimensional, because you only have kind of that one option of that one line where a little bit of rubber building up. So I don’t want to lie and say I like the surface.”

Ricciardo’s view was shared by his McLaren team mate Norris, who rued the fact that the race may not be as entertaining as fans had hoped for.

He also suggested that the organisers were “winging” it by trying something different with…