Another Grand Prix race weekend and it’s on another continent – the Americas - the first of 4 races in North America this year, this one being hosted in Miami. If anyone can turn a flat car park of an American Football team into a Grand Prix circuit, put on a good show & create a spectacle, the enterprising Americans can. As at the previous race weekend, in China, this Grand Prix would include a Sprint Race as well, so the sellout crowd would be treated to 2 races. Coming to the race, Mike Krack, the Aston Martin F1 Team Principal sounded optimistic about the team's prospects in Miami, writing that he was ‘hoping for a better result in Miami at a track that should suit the AMR24’. But was it to be?
It certainly wasn’t clear from the first and only Free Practice session on the Friday. No sooner had it got underway & even before the Aston Martins could go out, it was red flagged when Leclerc in his Ferrari spun off the track, just avoiding smashing into a wall. The curtailed session restarted and it ended with mixed results for the AM drivers, with Stroll finishing a noteworthy 5th fastest on the softest compound tyres, but Alonso, who tested on the hardest compound tyres, was only 19th.
Fast forward a couple of hours and it was time for Sprint Qualifying. There was a moment of hand in mouth in SQ1, when Alonso bashed a wall hard on his fast run, but he survived it and put his AMR24 in 3rd place, with Stroll also getting through to the next round, but only 13th. In SQ2 both cars were more consistent and equal and Alonso finished the round 7th, Stroll 9th. This consistency was repeated in the final qualifying round, but this time the places were reversed with Stroll finishing 7th and Alonso just behind him in 8th. The AMs appeared to be placed high enough up the grid to score some points, which are given to all that finish in the top 8.
All the good work was going to get undone at the start of the Sprint race on Saturday. Going into the first corner the wheels and tyres of the two AMs were interlocking as they tried to set themselves up to take the corner optimally. However, Hamilton, who was on Alonso’s outside, couldn't brake enough in time and nudged Alonso’s AM. At the same moment, Norris was trying to go round the outside of Stroll, so Stroll turned into Alonso’s path to avoid Norris and it became a 4-car sandwich! But with Hamilton nudging Alonso, that pushed Alonso towards Stroll and they collided, resulting in Stroll getting pushed into Norris. That collision spun Norris round and off the track and damaged Stroll’s floor and suspension, forcing him to retire. Norris couldn’t restart his McLaren so they were both out. Alonso got a puncture in that melee and had to come into the pits to get a fresh set of tyres and came out 18th – last. In the meantime, the safety car was deployed so that the debris could be cleared away. The race got underway again 3 laps later but Alonso just couldn’t get the performance he needed from his car to make any progress up the order and his race was pretty much over. He got stuck behind Ocon in an improved Alpine, despite being within a second of him and having the benefit of DRS. Finally on lap 16, Alonso managed to pass Ocon and got within a second of Bottas. But on the final lap Ocon took the place back as Alonso eased off and brought his car into the garage, not bothering to complete the final lap. For the record, Verstappen won the race, Leclerc was 2nd & Perez 3rd.
A couple of hours later, all that disappointment had to be put to one side as Race Qualifying approached and the team was repairing Stroll's car. They had clearly done a good job as in Q1, with 10 minutes gone, both drivers appeared set to get to the next round. However, it ended up with Stroll 10th & Alonso just squeezing into Q2, by 34/1000th of a second. That ended up being their best positions in Qualifying as in Q2 they both got knocked out – Stroll on the cusp in 11th, just 0.225 of a second behind Gasly in 10th and Alonso 15th again, 0.441 of a second behind Gasly. Both AM drivers complained of a lack of pace in their cars and with the margins so fine they ended up just outside of the group fighting for the top ten. Alonso also confided that some set-up changes were made after the Sprint race and these didn’t seem to work. That was the end of Aston Martin’s day and Max Verstappen claimed pole position. It appeared that many cars, not just the AMs, couldn’t make the tyres last the entire lap and there was a significant loss of grip. Also, the track didn’t seem to ‘evolve’ so those that posted good times in their initial runs didn’t improve on their later runs.
For the race on Sunday both drivers opted for different tyre strategies, with Stroll starting on the medium tyres and Fernando choosing the hardest compound, aiming to go deeper into the race. This time, all the cars got off to a clean start, without any incident and Alonso managed to get up to 12th place behind Stroll on lap 1, even passing Gasly, who’d dropped down from 10th. On lap 2, Gasly retook 12th but went off track in doing so. The Race Stewards determined that Gasly hadn’t gained an advantage in making that manoeuvre, meaning Alonso would have to pass him during the race at some point. For the next 10 laps Stroll was getting within (and then out of) a second/DRS range of Tsunoda and Alonso was having the same challenge behind Gasly. On lap 12 Stroll had to come in for new tyres and came out 17th. But Albon, who'd come in just before Stroll overtook him, but Stroll got the place back on lap 13. With drivers ahead having to come in, Alonso had moved up to 11th ~2.2 seconds behind Ocon in the 2nd Alpine. By lap 20 Ocon had increased his lead to ~5.5 and it was still Alonso 11th, Stroll 17th.
On lap 20 we had our first drama of the race, when the leader, Verstappen, uncharacteristically went over kerbs at a chicane and struck a bollard, which he carried with him on the front of his car until the next turn, detaching itself and left lying just off the middle of the track. The Virtual Safety Car was deployed and it was decided to bring Alonso in for fresh tyres – he came out 15th, just in front of Stroll. There followed an exciting 4-way scrap involving Ocon, Hulkenberg, Alonso and Gasly, with Alonso, on fresh medium tyres, passing Gasly and Hulkenberg and bearing down on Ocon again. But his advance was thwarted when the full Safety Car was deployed after Magnussen attempted a move on Sargeant, made contact and sent him into the barriers. This resulted in the race lead changing and at the restart, on lap 32. it was Lando Norris in the McLaren leading the pack, with Alonso 11th, and Stroll still 17th. On lap 40 Alonso moved up to 10th and into the points and Stroll moved up a place as well. 5 laps later Stroll passed Riccardo on the main straight to move up to 15th. Slightly further up Alonso was battling with Ocon again and finally got the move done on lap 48, on the same lap that Stroll overtook Zhou for 14th. Two laps later Stroll was within a second of Albon and managed to pass him but went off track. The Stewards deemed that this needed investigation and possibly requiring Stroll to give the place back, but with Albon voluntarily gliding off the track on the next lap it seemed it would no longer be called into question. The race ended with Alonso finishing 9th and Stroll in 13th position but the Stewards did give him a penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, resulting him being placed 17th. However, there was a new outright race winner – at his 110th attempt Lando Norris won the his first Formula One Grand Prix, fairly and squarely ahead of Verstappen and Leclerc. Many congratulations to Lando – a very popular win.
After the race, Fernando said “I enjoyed the racing and it seems we showed a little more performance in the race than we did in Qualifying. We do have some work to do to improve our performance in the next couple of races”. Lance had a somewhat different viewpoint, "It wasn't a great race today. We went for an early stop and then a few laps later the Safety Car was called, so the cars that had stayed out benefitted heavily from that. That really compromised our strategy. “
Next up, the first race in Europe, in Italy, at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in two weeks’ time – 17th-19th May.
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