2025 Miami Grand Prix: Formula 1
Jaime Halstuch
Staff Writer
Formula 1 is set to step foot in America for the first time this season this upcoming weekend in the Miami International Autodrome in what will be round six of the 2025 F1 season. This will be the second Sprint weekend out of six planned for the season. The Grand Prix weekend will start on Friday, May 2, with practice 1 starting at 12:30 pm ET, and sprint qualifying at 4:30 pm. Saturday, May 3, will start at 12:00 pm with the sprint race and finish with qualifying which starts 4:00 pm. The weekend will close with the race which will be on Sunday, May 4 at 4:00 pm.
How does the grid get to Miami? Sauber and Alpine have the same story every year, mediocrity. The Alpine rookie Jack Doohan has been the only news coming from either of those teams after leaving his DRS on for turn 1 during FP2 of the Japanese GP, a childish mistake that ended in a crash that was about 50G.
This is the first Red Bull car since 2006 that is not designed by Adrian Newey, so Red Bull tried something new, designing a car modeled around Verstappen’s driving style, putting the car’s balance mainly on the front and leaving the rear very sensitive to movement in turns. The car is yet to perform as expected, but there is a reason Verstappen is called “super Max,” and although the car is not what he wanted, he already got one win. Liam Lawson was RB21’s first victim, after he was demoted from Red Bull to Racing Bulls for Yuki Tsunoda. However, after the change he continued to be outperformed by his teammate, the rookie Isaac Hadjar. Tsunoda has performed better than Lawson as he did, what Liam couldn’t, score points.
Adrian Newey, the engendering genius who has been behind 12 constructors and 13 drivers’ championships, left Red Bull for Aston Martin. However, it seems to be that not even Newey can keep Aston Martin from STROLLing around during races. On the other hand, Haas has shown improvement, with Ocon pulling his usual solid performances and the rookie Oliver Bearman showing some amazing skill.
They say that teamwork makes dreamwork and the Williams pair knows it. Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz look better every day with a rare partnership that has allowed them to help each other during races. While Albon
When everyone thought this season was going to be Ferrari v McLaren, Ferrari is being once again disappointing. Lewis Hamilton is yet to be confrontable in the car and Charles Leclerc has shown some sparks, but again, the car is disappointing. Although Ferrari’s worst factor is not even the car, but their strategy, if they even have one.
Sadly, for them the car seems impossible to drive and got its first victim after the second race, Liam Lawson who as previously said got demoted to Racing Bulls and replaced by Tsunoda. Max is not happy with the car either, as he has said that it needs improvements. But there is a reason they call him “Super Max.” With a car almost impossible to drive, he has already won a race and managed to get on the podium another two times. Mercedes had a big challenge, moving on from the 7-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. George Russell has had an incredible season, and he is just a step away from being able to compete for a world championship. But Mercedes’s best story is about the rookie, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, between his personality, the way he pushes during races, and his results, Formula 1 fans have fallen in love with him. Mercedes has in their hands the best rookie of the season. Finally, McLaren. Lando Norris went from being Lando “Nowins” to competing for last season’s drivers’ championship, to being the favorite to win it this season, to losing the first place in the DC to his teammate Oscar Piastri during the last race. Zak Brown, McLaren’s CEO has a tough decision to make, who will be McLaren’s priority? Lando or Oscar? While Lando has shown his talent over the years and has outperformed Oscar for the most part since they became teammates, Oscar leads the DC.
The Miami International Autodrome presents itself as a fast circuit with 3 DRS zones and 19 turns. The race is normally a 2 stop (pit stops) race, with three DRS zones. Drivers will have to be very careful when they overtake. Remember the driver behind can activate DRS when he is less than one second away from the one in front. Very similar to Miami, Jeddah also has DRS zones close to each other, and Lewis used this to trick Lando into overtaking him right after the first one so he could retake his place in the second one with a bigger difference. The circuit does have some extremely tight corners in turns 11, 14, 15, 16, and 17, making it hard to overtake. And as is known in circuits like this one there are two keys, strategy and qualifying.
This will be a key weekend for both championships as there will be two opportunities to gain points, the sprint race and the actual race. Lando needs to show what he is made of and finish above Oscar in both races, while Oscar could create a bigger difference with Lando. Jack Doohan needs to start performing, the opportunities for him to show why he deserves the seat are flying away, and Franco Colapinto is right behind him waiting for his chance to get in that Alpine seat.
Formula 1 is finally coming back after 2 long weeks, and the Miami GP will not disappoint.
Contact Jaime at jaime.halstuch@student.shu.edu