Formula 1 will make its first of three visits to the United States this weekend for the third Miami Grand Prix.
It is also the second consecutive sprint round of the championship, where teams again face the prospect of limited practice time and an extra, 100 kilometre race on Saturday morning before setting the grid for Sunday’s grand prix.
But with McLaren and Mercedes both bringing their first set of major upgrades to their cars this weekend, there will be plenty of focus on the front of the field – as rivals Ferrari rock up with a new sponsor and a new look for the weekend.
Here are the talking points for the Miami Grand Prix…
Miami upgrades for McLaren and Mercedes
The sixth round of the championship and the first to be held outside of Asia and the Middle East, the sport heads to the Miami International Autodrome for the first of six North American rounds in this year’s championship.
While Red Bull and Max Verstappen continued their winning ways last time out in Shanghai, the weekend saw mixed fortunes for two of their closest rivals, McLaren and Mercedes. McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton shared the front row together in the sprint race, with Hamilton taking a podium finish in second. In the grand prix, Norris managed to split the Red Bulls, with good fortune, to finish behind Verstappen – also in second place.
So far, Ferrari have been the closest contenders with Red Bull in 2024 and the only team to win a race other than the world champions. However, McLaren and Mercedes are both planning to bring their biggest upgrades packages of the season to date in Miami this weekend, hoping to claw back some ground on Ferrari and, with it, Red Bull.
Mercedes technical director James Allison has expressed his hope that the new parts for this weekend could give them the marginal gains that will earn them additional places on the grid with an extremely close field in qualifying. At McLaren, team principal Andrea Stella said his team’s package will target an improvement in tyre degradation, but has insisted that fans should not expect them to make the same leap forward in performance that they did with their two major upgrades last season.
Either way, Miami is an unusual choice to introduce a significant set of upgrades on a car, given its temporary circuit status and the fact it is another sprint weekend. But either team comes away with a bigger share of points this weekend, then it will certainly have been worth it.
New sponsor, new…
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