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F1 LIVE | First free practice for the Miami Grand Prix
The Miami Grand Prix is gearing up for its first free practice session. It will be an important practice for the Formula One teams as they take to the American circuit for the first time in the history of the motorsport class.
Live blog | First free practice of the Miami GP
For Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen an interesting weekend is about to begin. Whereas the Monegasque had an excellent start of the season, Verstappen narrowed the gap on his competitor considerably in Imola. The Dutchman will therefore be all too eager to repeat this trick, while Leclerc is all set to put in a better performance than Verstappen this weekend.
However, it will not be easy to be there immediately. Since the teams never travelled to Miami in previous years, they will hope that the set-up of the cars is good right from the start. If this is not the case and the competition performs better, teams can fall a long way behind.
The first free practice session is also interesting for teams like Haas, McLaren, Mercedes and Alfa Romeo. This season, the middle of the field is very wide, so the formations barely differ from each other in the world championship. The pressure will be on in Miami.
Miami
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A very quick glance at the track tells you this is a circuit that will suit the Red Bull Racing car. Whilst cars that are better in the slow speed sectors gain more time because more time is spent in these sections, the amount of high-speed sections outweighs this similar to the Jeddah circuit.
The front straight and back straights are very long which will favour the Red Bull car. In Jeddah, they walked away with pole position and the race victory because of the long straights and high-speed corners that are barely noticed by an F1 car. Turn six to turn 11 is very similar to what we see with Saudi Arabia’s turn 13 hairpin.
The key part for Ferrari will be turns 11 to turn 16. Through this section, the cars will barely reach 150km/h which is where the Ferrari car really shows its strengths with traction in the corners allowing Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to get on the power early.
Any gains made by Ferrari in this section could be eaten straight back up with an almighty long straight towards the stadium. Expect DRS to be extremely powerful here, with the braking zone at turn 17 hardly being used as an overtaking area.
