The Miami Grand Prix had its debut race in 2022 and is set to be on the calender until 2031. The circuit under the Florida sun is 5.41km long, has 19 Turns and 3 DRS zones.

The Miami Grand Prix has undoubtedly improved each year, with the 2024 serving up quite an interesting race. The circuit comprises of slow and high speed corners, making it essential for a car to be setup correctly. Each year, the circuit’s temperature and grip changes – during the 2024 race, high temps and low grip made it difficult for drivers to manage their tyres. Also, there aren’t many areas where the tyre isn’t under much stress – the tyres are barraged from Turns 4 to 8, and 11 to 16 making it hard to manage.

To futher chuck a spanner in the works, it’s difficult to get the perfect setup with the requirement of having lots of front rotation, yet needing stability at the rear. Getting this wrong can mess up your weekend as we saw with Aston Martin’s performance during the 2024 race.

Despite the 3 DRS zones, 1 of which being exceptionally long, it’s difficult to overtake on the circuit around the Hard Rock Stadium. With that, track position is fundemental for a good result due to the little degredation and amount of DRS trains. Track evolution is high at the Miami Grand Prix so it’s extra important for the strategy team to time the out and push lap for Qualifying. After all, a good result on Saturday tends to mean a sucessful Sunday.

The likelihood of there being a Safety Car is at 50% so teams may decide against banking on it for their strategy. The dominate strategy is a one-stopper, with teams expected to choose the Medium or Hard compounds throughout the race. Due to low Tyre degredation, don’t expect the undercut to be utilised. According to Pirelli, it takes half a lap to switch on the Hard tyre which would completely eliminate the undercut

The most optimum strategy is to commence on the Mediums and switching to the hards around Lap 21. That said, it’s important for the drivers to not push these tyres too much or else they’ll have to come in for an early pitstop.

As always, drivers who were displaced will opperate an offset strategy. During 2024’s qualifying, Alonso came 15th so he chose a Hard starting compound but immediately felt vibrations on the first lap. The Safety Car allowed him to get a cheap stop for the Mediums.

TRIVIA:

• Fastest lap record: 1:27:641 – Max Verstappen
• Most wins: Max Verstappen – 2
• Pitloss – 19.6 seconds (green flag), 9 seconds (Safety Car)
• 57 laps

2024’S TYRE STRATEGY: