Category: Formula 1

The McLaren driver capitalised on a well-timed mid-race safety car period to effectively have a free pitstop at the front of the field, and then unleashed some dominant form to head home world championship leader Max Verstappen for an emotional win.

Having come so close to success several times in the past, perhaps most famously when a late rain shower cost him victory at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix, Norris was clearly overjoyed with his success.

Asked by TV interviewer Jenson Button for his feelings, Norris said: “Oh…about time, huh? F**k!…. Sorry!”

He continued: “What a race. It’s been a long time coming. But finally I’ve managed to do it.

“I’m so happy for my whole team that I finally delivered for them. And yeah, a long day, tough race, but I’m finally on top, so I’m over the moon.”

Norris, the 2016 Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award winner, felt that his upgraded McLaren had shown huge potential earlier in the weekend but it had not been fully realised thanks to a tricky sprint qualifying on Friday and then a Turn 1 exit in Saturday’s sprint.

“The whole weekend has been good,” he said. “I’ve just had some little setbacks along the way.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, comes in for a pit stop

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“But I knew on Friday, we had the pace and just a couple of mistakes here and there.

“But today, we managed to put it together, we put the perfect strategy, it all paid off. So thanks to McLaren and everyone. And I have to give a shout out to my mum and dad, of course.”

Norris has not shied away from admitting there have been times when he has thrown away good results, but was full of praise for the McLaren team that he has total faith in and has long supported him.

“I’m just proud, really,” he said. “I mean, a lot of people I guess, doubted me along the way.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes over my last five years, my short career. But today, we put it all together. So this is all for the team.

“I stuck with McLaren because I could believe in them. And I did believe in them. And today proved exactly that.”

Norris beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc of Ferrari after the McLaren ace took full advantage to make his pitstop under the safety car, unlike all his rivals.

2024 F1 Miami Grand Prix results

2024 F1 Miami Grand Prix report

Polesitter Verstappen led the charge to Turn 1, as his team-mate Sergio Perez divebombed down the inside of the Ferraris but locked up and went straight on – just missing Verstappen.

Leclerc ran second from Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz initially, but a fast-starting Oscar Piastri (McLaren) – from sixth on the grid – snatched third from the Spaniard around the outside at Turn 2, while Perez recovered in fifth, ahead of Norris.

Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) passed Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, which started on hard tyres among a mostly medium-shod field, for seventh. Further back, the Alpines raced wheel to wheel through the Turns 13-14-15 and 16 sequence in an argument over 13^th, with Pierre Gasly grabbing the spot after a brush of wheels.

Verstappen pulled clear of Leclerc’s DRS range, leaving the lead Ferrari prone to Piastri and Sainz. Piastri DRS-ed past Leclerc at Turn 17 at the end of lap four but was already 2s behind Verstappen.

Perez fell away from the leaders, into the clutches of Norris. Hamilton regained seventh from Hulkenberg on the approach to Turn 11 on lap seven, with Lewis reporting “we nearly had a big crash there” as he was squeezed towards the wall.

But Hamilton locked up six corners later and allowed Hulkenberg ahead of him again. They swapped places again three laps later, with George Russell (Mercedes) also getting by at Turn 11 a couple of laps later, which was Hulkenberg’s cue to pit for hard tyres.

The first of the frontrunners to stop was Perez on lap 18, as Norris began to hound him for fifth. Released, Norris immediately set fastest lap.

Leclerc pitted on lap 20, rejoining in sixth behind the long-running Hamilton. He pulled a superb around-the-outside move on the seven-time champion at Turn 11.

There was drama at the front too, as Verstappen collected the bollard at the apex of Turn 15 and was fortunate that it was jettisoned from the car after initially getting tangled up in his front wing and suspension. That resulted in a brief virtual safety car, to retrieve the pieces of bollard safely – but there wasn’t time for any of the leading lights to make a ‘cheap’ pitstop.

Verstappen pitted at the end of lap 23, allowing Piastri to lead from Sainz and Norris. Sainz stopped on lap 28, just before Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Logan Sargeant (Williams) clashed at Turn 3, causing a full safety car. Sargeant slammed backwards into the wall, but stepped from his car unhurt.

Norris’s long-running strategy thus paid off, as he was able to make a ‘free’ pitstop, rejoining well clear of Verstappen in the lead. Perez pitted again, going back onto mediums.

Norris led the restart from Verstappen, Leclerc, Piastri, Sainz and Perez. Yuki Tsuonda grabbed seventh from Hamilton at Turn 11.

Norris extracted himself from Verstappen’s DRS range with a brilliant opening lap, while Sainz duelled hard with Piastri for fourth – banging wheels at Turn 11. Moments later, Hamilton repassed Tsunoda around the outside of Turn 12.

Norris kept banging in impressive lap times, leaving Verstappen in his wake. Max complained: “I can’t get the car to turn, it’s a disaster.”

Sainz passed Piastri for fourth with a robust move with contact at Turn 17 on lap 39, and just managed to stay ahead as the Australian retaliated into Turn 1. Stewards will investigate their collision after the race.

Perez and Hamilton then passed Piastri, who suffered front wing damage when Sainz clipped him and was forced to pit.

Norris proved unassailable out front, beating Verstappen by 7.6s, who had Leclerc 2s further back.

Sainz finished fourth, but must see the stewards, from Perez and Hamilton.

Tsunoda finished seventh, ahead of Russell, Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Esteban Ocon scored Alpine’s first point of the season in 10^th.

2024 F1 Miami Grand Prix fastest laps

The victory ends Norris’s streak as having the most podiums without a GP victory, with McLaren scoring its first such win since the 2021 Italian GP after Oscar Piastri’s 2023 Qatar sprint race triumph.

At the start, Verstappen made a smooth getaway while Leclerc fell backwards off the line and got swamped before the late-braking Sergio Perez nearly wiped out Verstappen and pushed others including Norris wide at Turn 1, which allowed Leclerc back to second.

As Verstappen escaped to a healthy lead of a few seconds, Piastri edged ahead of Sainz as the first corners of lap one of 57 unfolded to run third behind Leclerc.

The Ferrari driver then slid around more on the mediums all the leaders had started on and without DRS to Verstappen ahead Piastri was able to pass by and then led the two Ferrari drivers for much of the first stint.

Behind, Perez held up Norris a chunk further back from the fight for second before he became the first of the leaders to pit for hards on lap 17.

Leclerc, who Sainz wanted to be waved by, then pitted at the end of lap 19, shortly after which Verstappen made a mistake at the chicane and cut the second part – knocking a bollard off the kerb and carrying it through his car until he reached the exit of Turn 16.

When this fell off a virtual safety car was called so the marshals could retrieve the bollard, after which Verstappen stopped at the end of lap 23.

Photo by: Erik Junius

Four laps later, Piastri and Sainz pitted, which meant Norris, who had been eating into Sainz’s previous advantage with a string of fastest laps, cycled into the lead.

His race was then transformed when Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant collided at Turn 2, with the Haas driver penalised for leaving his nose alongside the Williams’ right rear as they headed off to Turn 3, with the contact pitching Sargeant off backwards and the wreckage having to be cleared under the safety car.

McLaren was able to pit Norris under this, although he did a full lap at the safety car delta speed before coming in to switch to the hards and then getting out ahead of Verstappen, who had been picked up by the safety car before he and the rest were waved through.

The race restarted on lap 33, with Norris having to defend hard at Turn 1’s inside against Verstappen’s attack before the Briton was able to shoot clear to escape DRS over the first lap back at racing speed.

Leclerc was close enough to Verstappen to have a look to Turn 11’s inside on this tour before he dropped back out of DRS to the Red Bull and it became a two-horse race at the front.

But Norris hards being six laps younger provided a critical advantage, as 10 laps later his lead had reached the three-second mark – his rival ruing his RB20 understeering on the hards, a situation Verstappen called a “disaster” over his team radio.

With five laps left, Norris’s lead was up to 6.1s and he continued to stretch away to a final winning margin of 7.6s, with Leclerc 2.3s further back in third.

Sainz ended up fourth after two controversial battles with Piastri post-restart.

Then first involved both drivers going deep at Turn 11 on lap 34, with Sainz feeling he was pushed off but the stewards not deeming the incident worthy of a penalty.

On lap 39, Sainz attacked at Turn 17 at the end of the back straight but lost the rear of his car and as it swung around it hit Piastri’s front wing and broke it, with both drivers able to continuing battling to Turn 1 on the previous lap where Piastri went deep and Sainz could run clear.

Piastri was then passed by Perez and a resurgent Lewis Hamilton at Turn 11 shortly afterwards, with McLaren soon pitting him to replacing his front wing and dropping him to the back of the back.

The Australian battled back to finish 13th – McLaren warning him during fights not to have another clash and risk the safety car reappearing and erasing his team-mate’s lead.

Another safety car stopper, Yuki Tsunoda, finished seventh, ahead of George Russell and Fernando Alonso, who fought his way by Esteban Ocon late on.

With 10th, Ocon scores Alpine’s first point of the 2024 season.

Earlier this week it was announced talismanic designer Newey would step away from its F1 activities before becoming available for rival squads from March 2025 onwards.

Newey’s exit is seen by some competitors as a sign F1’s dominant empire could be about to crumble amid internal power struggles, with McLaren CEO Zak Brown expecting “more dominos” to fall as he revealed Red Bull CVs are swirling around the F1 paddock.

Red Bull’s world champion Max Verstappen played down Brown’s comments as an effort to “stir things up” as rival teams aim to benefit from its inner turmoil.

On Sunday, the Times newspaper reported long-time sporting director Wheatley could be the next key figure to depart Milton Keynes.

Wheatley is said to harbour ambitions to become a team principal in F1, and sources with knowledge of the situation have indicated that the 56-year-old has been in preliminary talks with other outfits.

Autosport understands Red Bull is relaxed about the situation, however, with Wheatley’s contract up for renewal as he sounds out his position in the market before committing to a new deal.

Red Bull Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatley and the pit stop team receive the DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award 2023

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The team insists the situation is not unlike how drivers would also explore any options elsewhere before deciding on their future.

It is understood Wheatley is one of several key Red Bull figures who have been of interest to rival teams in recent months, while F1’s dominant force is working to renew contracts of the technical staff that helped it achieve its current streak of success.

Ferrari is known to have made frequent approaches for technical director Pierre Wache, who has been in charge of its recent F1 car projects. But the Frenchman has recently committed his future to the team on fresh terms.

Red Bull has also moved to secure the futures of head of aerodynamics Enrico Balbo and head of performance engineering Ben Waterhouse amid a wider contract renewal cycle, while Autosport understands chief engineer Paul Monaghan is in similar talks after attracting interest elsewhere.

Wheatley joined Red Bull when it was in its F1 infancy in 2006 and became a key pillar of the team as its sporting director, helping the team win seven drivers’ and six constructors’ world titles with Sebastian Vettel and Verstappen.

The Grove-based outfit believes it has made progress from the car that helped it finish seventh in the standings last year, but has been caught out by the step forward that Haas and RB have made to lead the chasing pack behind the top five teams.

PLUS: The short-term pain that hides a very real Williams improvement

Williams’ situation has further not been helped by the early part of the season being disrupted by a series of major crashes that hampered its ability to focus on upgrades.

One other critical aspect of its 2024 season is that the team has made its FW46 more of an all-rounder that is consistent at all tracks.

While this has helped address previous weaknesses, it also means that Williams is no longer able to produce the kind of giant-killing performances it managed last year at certain venues that played to the car’s strengths.

After ending up behind a Haas, an RB and Alpine on the grid in Miami, Albon admitted that things were not ideal for Williams.

“Corner to corner, for the most part, it’s better, but there are definitely areas where the rear is a little bit more unstable than last year,” he said. “That’s just kind of a philosophy that we went down.

“But, honestly, I think it’s more the fact that RB and Haas have done quite a big step.

“We have made a step, but it is relative. My China weekend felt really strong – and we were P13. So that’s where we are.

Valtteri Bottas, Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber C44, Alex Albon, Williams FW46

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“It is frustrating, but it’s not like we don’t know where the performance is. There is performance on the table. And when and if we can unlock it – I do believe we can score points regularly.

“We’re balancing a little bit a lack of upgrades and updates have been late since the shakedown.

“We haven’t really put a decent update at all this year so far. So we’re falling behind.”

Speaking ahead of the Miami weekend, team boss James Vowles revealed that upgrades were on the way now that the team had got on top of its spares situation.

“There’s no other words to say it: there is potential but we haven’t realised any of it at all,” he said.

“We’ve already got a new front suspension now and we have a new floor coming in two weeks’ time. So, you try not to build 10 of them, you build three or four of them.

“When you lose three of them, that just means you’ve now got to build three or four more whilst you try and get your stock up. And that put us on the back foot a little bit, I think it’s fair to say.”

Sunday’s race is expected to be a one-stop affair and the combination of the Miami International Autodrome’s twisty nature, a low-grip surface and warm track temperatures.

The majority of drivers admitted that their qualifying form was dictated by how well they managed to keep the tyre working across a flying lap around the 3.363-mile circuit.

“Unfortunately, I think the tyre compounds are a bit on the conservative side for this grand prix,” said Sainz. “I think we could’ve maybe done with softer compounds for a bit more strategy variability, so I don’t expect much difference to last year.”

When asked by Autosport for his thoughts on the subject, Verstappen explained: “Just very low grip, they overheat very quickly for whatever reason. I think they are conservative, but at the same time they are already overheating.

“I would like more two-stop or three-stop races. I think that’s a lot more fun than having a straightforward one-stop. It’s not really that challenging for the teams and drivers.

“A race, like in China, where you could do a two-stop, it opens up a bit more flexibility in the pit windows. Maybe we could go softer, we’d have to speak to Pirelli about if they want to do that.”

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton also voiced his frustration about the narrow operating window of the tyres on the current breed of ground effect cars, which has often been a key factor in Mercedes’ struggles since the dawn of the current regulations.

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“Definitely, in all my career, I don’t remember ever having such a small window of working,” said Hamilton of how the handling of his Mercedes is impacted by the tyres.

“Honestly, it’s probably the most frustrating thing.

“You look back in the day when you had a much bigger working window to work with. Then you can just optimise the balance and then just have good grip throughout the whole lap.

“This is definitely my least favourite.”

McLaren elected to bring a hefty revamp to its MCL38 for this weekend’s Miami race, which featured an overhaul of a number of aerodynamic surfaces aimed at helping lift the overall downforce of the car.

But despite some promising flashes of speed throughout the weekend, McLaren has struggled to show its true potential and deliver a standout result.

Lando Norris, who is the only driver to have the full package of components onboard, had a messy lap in sprint qualifying to only end up ninth before he was pitched out of the race at the first corner.

In grand prix qualifying, Norris ended up fifth behind Red Bull and Ferrari after not being able to get everything he wanted out of the softs – and even trying mediums at one point.

But on a weekend where tyre temperature management has been critical to performance, Norris thinks it has been almost impossible to judge how much better the upgrade package has been.

He thinks things have also not been helped by the fact that the layout of the Miami circuit is not one that plays well to the areas where the changes are supposed to bring the greatest gains.

“It’s good, it’s working as expected but I think it’s not the track which is going to show all of it,” he said.

Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“Hopefully in Imola or something, we can see a bit more of the potential of the car. But it’s a step in the right direction, that team has done a very good job to get everything up and ready.”

Norris thinks that it may take two or three more races to get a proper judgement on where McLaren’s new package has really lifted the team to.

“I think you can never judge it on one session and one track,” he explained. “You have to see it on high downforce, low downforce and everything. People are too quick to judge everything from one weekend or one day or whatever.

“I think everyone just needs to be a bit more patient with everything and see what it’s like over two weekends, three weekends before you start to judge.

“We have our answers of its working, but to know the true extent of it and how well it performs in all different areas, that’s when you have to wait over three races rather than just making a conclusion in one.”

Last year Miami featured a glitzy opening ceremony with drivers presented to the crowd one by one by American rapper LL Cool J, flanked by Miami Dolphins cheerleaders, while will.i.am conducted an orchestra playing a song he had co-produced specifically for the race with Lil Wayne.

The ceremony was met with mixed reviews by fans, especially its predominantly European TV audience, while several drivers also had misgivings about being asked to spend an extended amount of time in the Miami heat in their race overalls.

For Sunday afternoon’s third running of the race, F1 and the organisers have revised the ceremony, doing away with the driver introductions in the way they were performed in 2023 and opting for a less complicated run plan.

The drivers will be introduced using a giant LED screen above the start/finish gantry, which will also be used to display other pieces of bespoke content ahead of the race’s 4pm local start time (9pm BST).

Six-time Grammy winner Marc Anthony is set to perform the American national anthem, while Kaskade will be the DJ on the grid.

While the change is not directly based off driver feedback, F1 has been evolving its pre-race build-ups since last year to move more towards music and on-the-grid entertainment to lift the atmosphere ahead of the start.

Will.i.am announces Yuki Tsunoda, Scuderia AlphaTauri, on the grid

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Former Haas team boss Guenther Steiner, who is present in Miami in an official capacity as the race’s ambassador, says drivers should make more of an effort to embrace the new ways American races are trying to engage fans.

“I think the drivers need to understand that they’re in a unique spot,” he said.

“If something is new, it’s easier to be negative than positive. Even if you don’t enjoy it, put your best effort into it because it makes a lot of people happy.

“Obviously, racing needs to be the most important thing, but you can give people a lot of entertainment outside of the racing.

“Maybe 20 years ago, we just wanted to go and see a race, but now kids want to have a full experience and I think Miami has brought that to the calendar.

“Promoters saw that this works because you attract people to the sport, which is what we want.”

Other trackside acts across the weekend include Ed Sheeran, John Summit, Kaytranada and Steve Aoki.

McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell completed Q3 on the theoretically slower medium as teams battle to mitigate overheating issues on Pirelli’s softer C4 compound.

Even polesitter Max Verstappen said he struggled, with Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko commenting to ORF that the “incalculable” tyre characteristics mean “nobody had it under control”, labelling Mercedes’ move to mediums an “act of desperation”.

Norris nearly crashed on several consecutive corners in Friday’s sprint qualifying and felt even less confident on the compound on Saturday, also opting to turn to the mediums to find more confidence.

“Most people have been complaining about it,” Norris said. “It’s just so easy to overdo it like, you push one per cent too much and it’s kind of game over.

“I never felt as good as I did yesterday, so I wanted to put the medium on to get some good confidence again. It just shows there wasn’t much difference between the soft and medium.”

Pirelli trackside engineer Simone Berra confirmed that the difference between the soft and medium compound was smaller than usual for the specifics of Miami’s surface, which has become rougher due to ageing.

Because of how easy it was to overheat the softs, Berra explained that drivers who pushed too much in Miami’s demanding first sector would pay the price later on in the lap.

Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team VCARB 01

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

That also helped explain comments from Williams man Alex Albon, who said his tyres were destroyed after just six corners.

“The step in grip with a soft is not as expected,” Berra explained. “We expected around six or seven tenths and we’ve seen just a couple of tenths of difference.

“The problem is that the [soft] C4 is very peaky, so when you overheat the C4 and you exceed the target temperature, you start to slide a lot.

“You have to manage a little bit and not to be too aggressive in the first sector with prolonged corners, where you lean a lot on the tyres.”

Soft tyre an option for straight-forward one-stopper

The small difference between the soft and medium tyres also has implications on the race, as demonstrated by RB driver Yuki Tsunoda successfully using the softer rubber to move up into the points in Saturday’s 19-lap sprint.

As long as overheating is kept under control in race trim, the tyre degradation in Miami is fairly limited, opening up a straightforward one-stop race using either soft or medium tyres in addition to a very long stint on hards.

“In our opinion, it will be a medium-hard [one-stop], because we have no graining and degradation was quite low,” Berra said.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“But we think the soft could be a raceable tyre. You could try to gain positions, stop early and go with the C2 in free air to the end of the race.”

The jury is still out on how powerful the undercut will be, but because of the limited tyre drop-off, Pirelli isn’t expecting that pitting one lap before the car ahead is going to be as strong a tactic as it usually is.

“It’s not really powerful like in other circuits, because degradation is pretty low,” Berra added.

“For the hard compound, you need around half a lap for the tyres to be in a working window, so if you pit one lap later than the car which was in front, you don’t lose too much [by staying out].

“The undercut is powerful when degradation is quite high and having a new tyre gives you a big pace [advantage].”

Although the Monegasque could do little about stopping Verstappen from roaring to yet another victory in the sprint, the fact that he was able to match his pace once he dropped into clean air has left him upbeat about his chances.

Critical, he thinks, for his chances to stop Red Bull from winning is to put Verstappen under pressure – something that he reckons could be on the cards.

But asked why he felt that way, with Verstappen having been pretty much untouchable so far this year, Leclerc said: “Just the sprint race, we were a little bit closer to what we normally see.

“However, Max wasn’t really happy with his car in the sprint race, so we need to see how much of a step forward he does being happier with the car.

“But we did some fine-tuning on our side. We’re also confident we did a step forward, so we’ll see.

“If we have a similar pace like we’ve seen [in the sprint] then I think with strategy you can always put a bit more pressure. I hope that is the case. We’ve got the two cars in the front, so it’s a good opportunity.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Leclerc felt that the gap in the sprint, where he finished 3.371 seconds behind Verstappen, was not truly representative of the performance of their cars – as he was especially hampered when running close to the Red Bull in dirty air.

Reflecting on the pace of the two cars throughout the 19-lap race, Leclerc said: “I think we were quite similar on that. Maybe in the last two, three laps, Max had the upper hand and he pulled away a bit more.

“But apart from that, I was just struggling a little bit with the dirty air. Whenever I was getting within 1.8s, 1.7s, I would drop to 2.2s, 2.3s, and then I would come back a little bit. I was mostly struggling with dirty air.

“I think if I had the DRS on that first lap, we probably could have put him under a bit more pressure, but we didn’t.

“So we need to look into that to try and make sure that we keep the DRS if we are behind and we pull away if we are in front.”