Lando Norris’s first victory came in a decidedly nicer race than one could have expected, very tight with the extremely compact group thanks to the layout of the track and, above all, the zero degradation of the tyres, which prevented those who usually a significant difference in this aspect, of using one’s potential on the race pace front. The Miami match therefore highlighted a series of aspects that should not be underestimated for the rest of the season.
McLaren is lucky, but wins a performance race, how much has the Woking car really grown?
No one certainly denies that the Safety Car was fundamental to Lando Norris’ victory. Without it the Englishman would have struggled to get to the podium, given the difficulty in overtaking on the American track. However, this does not take away the fact that in terms of pace the McLaren number 4 was still the fastest car on the track, as was then clear when the Safety Car came out and Norris left none other than Max Verstappen on the spot and went on to take the victory . In the last stint of the race, Norris had an average advantage of 2 tenths of a second over the Red Bull number 1 and almost 3 over Leclerc’s Ferrari in third. The track with literally zero degradation changed the character of the race a lot, with the entire group decidedly more compact and the top 6 always fighting, except, in fact, in the final with Norris now flying alone. The track anomalies raise several questions about the real value of the McLaren MCL38 in version 2.0 driven by the young Briton. The characteristic points of the original MCL38, inherited from last season’s single-seater, were the high level of aerodynamic load, which brought a lot of performance in fast corners, but suffered a little in the straight line due to the consequent high value of aerodynamic resistance, and, in the cold , good tire management and a great pace. The car suffered from the heat because it struggled to manage the overheating of the tires and struggled in the slow and medium-slow corners. The hottest race since the start of the season was held in Miami with almost 50 degrees of asphalt, where only pure performance counted and where it was important, precisely, not to overheat the tyres. And from there the updated McLaren emerged victorious, a sensational performance if we consider the conditions and which confirms what we had already seen in the last season: in Woking the ideas on how to make these cars work are decidedly clear, the updates are brought on the track and behave as expected, improving the specific weaknesses of the car, which consequently grows in great leaps. From the analyzes of the 3 days and from the average telemetry of the last stint of the race we see that on the Florida track the MCL38 expressed a load similar to that of the Red Bull, but with a decisive improvement in the medium-low speed corners and with a good tip. The only real weak point shown during the weekend was qualifying, which might seem like a contradiction, given the pace shown, as mentioned, entirely the result of pure performance. However, the problem in that case was the delicacy of the soft tyre, which was far too delicate to manage in terms of surface temperature, as seen with the last attempt in Q3 where everyone got worse trying to push just above the limit. So, on a track that flattened all the values, keeping the group compact, the MCL38 in version 2.0 stood out for its performance. This means that the car driven by Norris and Piastri (excellent in the first part of the race helped by low degradation, and who will also have the complete package at Imola) actually has even more potential to extract, on more complete tracks, especially from the point of view of the asphalt, and with greater rubber degradation? The next races will give us the answer.
RedBull not shining all weekend
At RedBull it is clear that the RB20 never found the conditions to express itself at its best throughout the weekend. For the race there is talk of a loss of load due to contact with the cone made by Verstappen (who finally makes a mistake proving that he is human) but seeing the progress of the weekend in Miami that does not seem to be the main cause of the mini debacle. The balance of the car has never been optimal, Verstappen complained about it in every session, the low degradation forced everyone to challenge pure performance, limited however by the risk of overheating the tires and therefore leveling the group. With a “caged” and complicated car, only the talent of the Dutchman was able to keep his RB20 at the head of the group, edging out his rivals tenth after tenth as long as he could, relying on his performance in slow corners and with traction. Of course, if there are doubts about the scale of values, in the technically worst race so far for Red Bull since the beginning of the year Verstappen still finished second and without the Safety Car he would probably have won, which is why it is still too early to think about looking at the world rankings, but in light of the fact that the RB20 has already had (like McLaren) the first round of important updates, it seems reasonable to think that in the remainder of the season, which is still long, there will be several races where the Milton Keynes team, while still remaining the favourite, of course, he won’t have an easy life and this can only be good news for the show.
Ferrari good considering the non-updates
Finally, coming to Ferrari, the performance cannot be evaluated without the premise that SF24 is now the last of the top teams to still run with the same car seen at Sakhir. With a situation like this, keeping up with Verstappen’s Red Bull for the entire race and putting Perez behind is a great result, achieved intelligently by the team, which chose a set-up decidedly with more aerodynamic load (Leclerc’s performance in the first sector in the fast corners was clearly the best of the lot for the entire weekend including the race) to slightly improve the management of tire temperatures and the traction phase, an increasingly fundamental feature of the performance of these cars. The greater suspension stiffness was felt compared to the Red Bull in the very slow section of the track, but overall the pace of the two Ferrari drivers was half a tenth from that of Verstappen. The strategy on Leclerc appeared not to be perfect, with the stop so early, but the choice was worth the position on Piastri, and given the difficulty Sainz had in overtaking in passing the Australian, it may not have been entirely a mistake. The SF24 in version 1.0 therefore ends its life on the track quite well while waiting for the first big package planned for Imola, where we can begin to eliminate the “ifs” from the performance evaluations.
Difficult overtaking and tires that don’t degrade a recipe for the technically best show
To conclude, we would like to make a reflection, which has neither certain answers nor decides what is right or wrong, but simply aims to be food for thought. The race experienced two important dynamics: the difficulty in overtaking and the zero degradation of the tires. Yet it was, in the writer’s opinion, the best race since the beginning of the season (and perhaps even a little further back) in terms of intensity, pace, tight, complicated and difficult overtaking, strenuous defenses (which were worth doing) and whatever. The doubt that easy overtaking and tires that wear out creating enormous performance differentials is the correct recipe for the show has arisen.
