Everything is now ready for the fifth round of the season. Only a few hours left and the riders will get on track for the Miami GP race. Sergius Perez starts from pole, followed by Alonso and Carlos Sainz, not forgetting the seventh position of Leclerc and the ninth by Verstappen called to comeback. These reasons alone, and above all this starting grid, are a valid reason not to miss anything from the Miami GP. But keep an eye on the weather uncertainty: in Miami, in fact, rain is expected during the race. In this respect, whoever makes the best strategy will have the upper hand.
Strategy for Miami: One stop or two?
The question, therefore, arises spontaneously: which strategy will the teams use? Based on what the Pirelli, as happened in the competition last year, the fastest strategy scheduled for Sunday is just one stop away, starting on the P Zero Yellow medium and switching to the P Zero White hard between the twelfth and twentieth laps. Double pit stops could be considered by the teams. The start on Medium, the change between the tenth and sixteenth laps with the Hards and finally a further change to mount the Softs between the thirty-fifth and forty-third laps does not differ much from the times obtained with a single passage in the pitlane.
The alternative at two stops it could be represented by a finish on Softs for the last 11-16 laps of the race. The teams will also have to take into consideration the probability of a safety car, high considering that the only other GP held in Miami has been neutralized twice, and the weather, given that there is a significant probability of rain for tomorrow, even during the competition.
Isola: "The soft tires performed very well in qualifying"
To present tonight's race, there was no shortage of words from the head of the Motorsport technical area Pirelli Mario Isola: “It was a qualifying full of emotions and twists, which ended with the first three positions occupied by three Spanish-speaking drivers, in order Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz. As expected, the pole time was significantly lower than that recorded last year at the Formula 1 debut in Miami, with an improvement of almost two seconds (1s955). The Softs proved to perform very well: not only very fast on the first timed lap but also capable of recovering the grip after one or two cooling laps to thus offer the riders a second chance to improve their position".
Coming to the race
“With a view to the race, the data collected so far confirms that the one-stop strategy – starting with the Mediums and then switching to the Hards – is the most effective on paper. It is true that the slight shortening of the pit lane slightly widens the window to hypothesize a double stop but it is equally true that the Softs have suffered a bit of graining in the long runs seen. All this is valid if the weather conditions remain stable but we know that the forecasts indicate that rain could become a protagonist on Sunday, before or during the race. And we know that here when it rains anything can happen, especially on the track…”
SOURCE: Pirelli F1 Media
