All Info You Want to See Before the 2024 Miami F1 GP Starts

After the first Sprint weekend of the 2024 Formula 1 season, we're headed to the second one. The 2024 Miami Grand Prix will be the sixth race of the 2024 campaign and we should expect another dominant display from Red Bull and Max Verstappen.

Will Verstappen Win Three in a Row?

The Austrian team and the Dutch racer continue to destroy the field with relentless performance weekend after weekend, and the Miami Grand Prix could bring bad news to the rest of the grid. Verstappen and Red Bull won the inaugural edition of the Miami round in 2022, and the Dutchman followed it up with victory in 2023 from ninth on the grid.

The 2024 F1 season has started in a similar fashion, with Verstappen already racking up four victories in five rounds. The Dutchman leads the World Drivers' Championship with 110 points, followed by his teammate Sergio Pérez with 85.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz and third and fourth, respectively. Leclerc has scored 76 points so far, and Sainz has 69 points in four outings. The McLaren drivers (Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri) are fifth and sixth in the WDC with 58 and 38 points, respectively.

Behind the Top 3 teams, we will find George Russell (Mercedes), Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), Sir Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) rounding out the TOP in the WDC.

While Red Bull (195 points) is leading the World Constructors' Championship with a 44-point gap over the Scuderia Ferrari (151), McLaren is third with 96 points. The rest isn't quite close, with Mercedes scoring only 52 points so far, and Aston Martin following closely in fifth place with 40 points.

In the back of the grid, three teams have failed to score points yet: Williams (Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant), Alpine (Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly), and Kick Sauber (Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu). These three teams, however, could benefit from certain regulation changes regarding the point-scoring positions from the 2025 campaign onwards (possibly awarding points to the Top 12).

2024 Miami GP Facts & Figures

The United States of America has 12 different venues in the history of Formula 1 with the addition of Miami to the Formula 1 World Championship in 2022 and the Las Vegas Street Circuit was the newest addition late in the 2023 F1 campaign.

The event will be the 77th Grand Prix celebrated in the USA and the first of three in 2024 (Austin and Las Vegas will host races near the end of the season).

The United States has hosted the most different

Grands Prix by different names in Formula 1 history, with eight different GP titles taking place in the country throughout F1 history.

Indianapolis 500 (11 times between 1950 and 1960 - held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway).

United States Grand Prix (44 times, starting in 1942 and the most recent in 2022. The race has been held at Austin, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Riverside, Sebring, and Watkins Glen).

US Grand Prix West (eight times between 1976 and 1983. Held at Long Beach).

Caesars Palace Grand Prix (twice in 1981 and 1982. Held in Las Vegas).

Detroit Grand Prix (seven times between 1982 and 1988).

Dallas Grand Prix (held once in 1984)

Miami Grand Prix (twice since 2022)

Las Vegas Grand Prix (made its F1 debut in 2023)

Miami is one of the eight different GPs by title in the United States in Formula 1 history, which is a record for any country. Italy is second on that list with five different GPs by name in the country (Italian, Pescara, San Marino, Tuscan, and Emilia Romagna Grands Prix).

Max Verstappen and Red Bull won the inaugural Miami GP in 2022. The Dutchman triumphed again in 2023 and that win kicked off his streak of a record 10 consecutive victories.

Miami International Autodrome Track Info

The Miami International Autodrome was the 11th different race track based in the United States to host a Formula 1 Grand Prix. The tally of US tracks in F1 history has gone up to 12 after the addition of the Las Vegas Strip Circuit.

Despite having lots of different race tracks in Formula 1 throughout different eras, there isn’t a single US track on the Top 10 in terms of circuits with most races held. Watkins Glen has held the most Grands Prix amongst the US tracks, with 20 (which ranks 17th, only a spot ahead of Indianapolis’ 19 races).

The Miami International Autodrome is a 5.412-km track that goes around the Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.

The circuit includes 19 corners but has some big areas of acceleration that provide overtaking chances. Moreover, three DRS zones will help in terms of wheel-to-wheel combat. The race had 60 overtakes in its 2023 edition, but a high number of overtakes doesn't always equate to great racing, and that's an area to improve for this year.

The Lap Records for the Miami International Autodrome are the following:

Outright Fastest Lap from Max Verstappen (Red Bull RB19) during qualifying for the 2023 event (Q2): 1.26.814 min.

Fastest Lap during the race from Max Verstappen (Red Bull RB19) in 2023: 1:29.708 min.

2024 Miami Grand Prix - Tyres

The dry tyres for the 2024 Miami Grand Prix will be the C2 as P Zero White hard, C3 as P Zero Yellow Medium, and C4 as P Zero Red soft.

Pirelli explained their choice with a statement in a press release: "There will definitely be something new on the podium at the Miami Grand Prix. Whether that will be a driver is hard to say as once again Max Verstappen will be a firm favourite for victory, having already won twice before in Florida.

Irrespective of which three drivers are up there, they will all be wearing a special edition of the Podium Cap which Pirelli supplies to the top three finishers and the representative of the winning team. The cap’s turquoise colour takes its inspiration from the waters that border the city’s beaches, featuring a stylised palm tree, an obvious Miami emblem, as well as the stars and stripes of the United States flag.

The Miami Grand Prix is the sixth round of the season, the first of three to be held in the United States of America. Running from 3 to 5 May, it is the third edition of this race which first appeared on the calendar in 2022.

The temporary street circuit flows around the Hard Rock Stadium, a multipurpose venue which is home to the Miami Dolphins American Football team and this year it will also host, among other events, the final of football’s Copa America. The Formula 1 team areas are actually located within the facility which creates a truly unique atmosphere for a Grand Prix weekend.

The 5.412 kilometre-long track, which the drivers will tackle 57 times on Sunday, features 19 corners, three straights, three DRS zones and top speeds can exceed 340 km/h. There are also some elevation changes, the main one being between turns 13 and 16, with the track rising and falling as it goes over an exit ramp and under various overpasses. There’s an uphill approach to the chicane at turns 14 and 15, with a crest in the middle before the track drops away on the exit.

The three sectors are each different in character, making for a lap that has a bit of everything. The first part boasts a run of eight high speed corners, while the second sector has a long straight and a few low speed turns. The final run to the finish line consists of a straight and three flowing corners.

There are only two races on which to base statistics and they suggest the Miami Grand Prix is midfield when it comes to the number of overtaking moves. As for the forces, both lateral and longitudinal, to which the tyres are subjected, it rates as one of the medium to low tracks on the calendar.

The three dry tyre compounds chosen by Pirelli for this round are in the midrange: C2 as Hard C3 as Medium and C4 as Soft. The track was resurfaced before last year’s race and is very smooth, therefore offering quite low grip, a feature compounded by the fact it is not used for any other motorsport events. This leads to a very significant track evolution and graining could put in an appearance, particularly with the Medium and Soft tyres.

Miami enjoys a tropical climate with air temperature usually exceeding 25°C, very often hitting 30°C, the record being 33°C. In the first ten days of May, it is usually sunny, but there can be a weather build up leading to showers or thunderstorms one day out of two or three. The wind is a sea breeze with gusts of up to 50 km/h. The average number of days in May when the temperature exceeds 30°C has gone up from 13 days in the Nineties to 23 in the past decade. Last year, the track surface hit 55 °C, one of the highest figures seen all season.

In terms of strategy, the Miami Grand Prix is a classic one-stop race, with Hard and Medium compounds the outright favourites. Last year, Verstappen started from ninth on the grid on Hard tyres before switching to Mediums, while the other two drivers who made it to the podium, Perez and Alonso, went the other way (Medium then Hard).

This is another Sprint weekend, therefore with only one hour of free practice on Friday morning to try and find the best set-up as well as evaluating tyre behaviour. Right from the afternoon of the first day, it’s time for Sprint Qualifying, to establish the grid for Saturday morning’s Sprint Race. After that, the parc ferme regulations are briefly suspended so that teams can work on the cars for qualifying and then Sunday’s traditional Grand Prix."

The minimum starting pressures will be 25.0 psi (front) and 21.5 psi (rear).

2024 Miami Grand Prix - Weather Forecast

Friday, May 3rd - FP & Sprint Qualifying
Conditions: Mostly sunny and pleasant
Max. temperature: 28°C
Chance of rain: 12%

Saturday, May 4th - Sprint Race & Main Qualifying
Conditions: Partly sunny
Max. temperature: 28°C
Chance of rain: 7%

Sunday, May 5th - Main Race
Conditions: Partly sunny with a couple of showers
Max. temperature: 28°C
Chance of rain: 55%

Who will be on the 2024 Miami Grand Prix podium?

2023 Miami podium: 1. Verstappen, 2. Pérez & 3. Alonso

The new Sprint format looked quite decent during the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix, with important sessions following each other right after the first practice of the weekend. Of course, the rain in SQ3 gave us a mixed grid for Saturday's Sprint, but the format seemed a bit nice.

It wasn't bad to see the Sprint events out of the way before heading into the main Qualifying and Sunday's Grand Prix. However, it seemed like the shorter versions of both sessions were a bit better than the 'main' sessions.

Regardless, Red Bull looked dominant once again and we should expect similar results in Miami, although there's always room for some surprises. Those surprises, however, could take place in terms of who's second in the pecking order. Ferrari has looked strong in that spot in the early stages of the season, but McLaren's Lando Norris looked great in China, starting first in the Sprint and finishing second in the Grand Prix.

The podium prediction of the 2024 Miami Grand Prix is 1. Max Verstappen, 2. Sergio Pérez, 3. Charles Leclerc.

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