Beyond the glamour, the celebrity guests and the fake marina, last year’s inaugural Miami Grand Prix was defined by one factor – a complete lack of grip.
While the surface around the Hard Rock Stadium offered just enough grip on the racing line for the event to avoid being farcical, it made overtaking incredibly difficult as any attempt to dive around the inside or hang around the outside of a rival was almost guaranteed to fail.
After drivers offered their feedback, race organisers listened to their concerns and resurfaced the entire circuit in a bid to improve driveability and racing for this weekend. So after the first day of practice, the biggest question to be answered was if the resurfacing had succeeded in giving drivers the grip they had been looking for.
“The conditions out there aren’t great,” admitted Sergio Perez after setting the fourth-fastest time in the second hour of practice. “Especially the grip in FP1 – it felt like intermediate to wet tyre conditions.” The opening practice session was held in warm and dry – though humid – conditions.
Fernando Alonso was more positive than his Red Bull rival. “So far, I think the new track surface seems to be better,” he suggested. “But we were basically just cleaning the racing line today. It seems when you move away from it, it’s very slippery – so that could make overtaking difficult.”
That lack of grip off-line was demonstrated best in the first practice when Nico Hulkenberg suffered a peculiar spin at turn three, a simple, full-throttle right hander, sending the Haas into the wall and causing significant damage to the rear of his car. Luckily for Hulkenberg, his quick-working mechanics managed to fix the damage to allow him to take part fully in the second session.
But that, a series of other spins and Charles Leclerc’s shunt at the end of the second hour demonstrated how much of a challenge drivers face to stay disciplined and on-line this weekend.
“I wanted it a bit too much, a bit too soon and paid the price for it,” admitted Hulkenberg, who is experiencing the Miami International Autodrome for the first time this weekend. “It happens sometimes and luckily there wasn’t too much damage and we picked things up in FP2.”
Even though there was not a single drop of rain throughout Friday, that might not be the case for the rest of the weekend. The FIA’s weather radar reports a risk of a potential…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…