Max Verstappen won the Sprint race valid for the Miami Grand Prix, the sixth stage of the 2024 Formula 1 season. It is the second weekend in this format of the year, the second with victory for the Dutchman – in total, there are nine victories for Verstappen in the sprints . Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc maintained his starting position and crossed the finish line just under three seconds behind the three-time champion. Sergio Perez, Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate, was overtaken by Daniel Ricciardo at the start, but recovered the position and finished third.
Ricciardo had an excellent race and held off Carlos Sainz to finish in fourth place. Sainz was fifth.
The race
Verstappen started well and maintained P1, pushing Leclec off the track. In the maneuver, Perez ended up losing space and also third position to Ricciardo.
Alonso and Stroll collided in the first corner, after the Spaniard hit his teammate. Hamilton dived inside Alonso and the Spaniard spread it onto Stroll. With the incident, the Canadian hit Norris who ended up stopped in the escape area. The safety car entered the track, while the drivers were forced to go through the pitlane to remove Norris’ MCL-38. Stroll also abandoned the race. The stewards understood that everything was a ‘racing incident’.
On lap 4, the safety car entered the pits and the race restarted. Verstappen, Leclerc, Ricciardo, Perez and Sainz were in the top five respectively. At the end of the lap, Verstappen already had more than a second advantage over P2 Leclerc, preventing the Ferrari driver from using the DRS, which was released for use a lap later.
Perez passed Ricciardo and took third place. Next up was Sainz, who was putting pressure on the Australian and took advantage of Miami’s long straight to stick to the RB driver.
The Mexican from Red Bull was unable to open up an advantage over Ricciardo, who remained in the DRS zone. With that, a little train formed behind the Australian. Piastri, Hulkenberg, Magnussen, Hamilton, Tsunoda… Most of them separated by less than a second. As everyone had the possibility to use DRS, no one was able to overtake.
On lap 8, Hamilton tried to get around Magnussen, but had to withdraw to avoid the touch. Mercedes’ low straight line speed prevented the seven-time champion from attacking. In the curves, Hamilton was getting closer, but on the straights, Haas opened up an advantage. On lap 11, Hamilton passed Magnussen, who went off the track to regain the position. As a result, Magnussen was penalized 10 seconds.
Sainz was also unable to overtake Ricciardo. Sainz tried a few times, but without success.
On lap 14, Verstappen had a 1.7s advantage over P2 Leclerc. Perez was 2.3s behind the Monegasque, while Ricciardo was a further 6.2s behind in P4.
Hamilton tried again to overtake Magnussen, but both went off the track and Tsunoda managed to overtake the Mercedes driver. One lap later, on lap 15, Hamilton and Tsunoda passed Magnussen. Magnussen received a black flag and another 10 second penalty, totaling 20 on his account. In the end, Magnussen received three 10-second penalties for leaving the track and taking an advantage, and five for track limits.
On the last lap, Hamilton overtook Tsunoda to finish in P8. Despite this, the Briton was under investigation for breaking safety car rules. The stewards decided on a ‘drive-through’, converted into 20 seconds in total time. With the penalty, Hamilton dropped to P16.
Check out the results of the Sprint race valid for the F1 Miami GP:
1) Max Verstappen (Red Bull/Honda RBPT)
2) Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
3) Sergio Pérez (Red Bull/Honda RBPT)
4) Daniel Ricciardo (RB/Honda RBPT)
5) Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
6) Oscar Piastri (McLaren/Mercedes)
7) Nico Hülkenberg (Haas/Ferrari)
8) Yuki Tsunoda (RB/Honda RBPT)
9) Pierre Gasly (Alpine/Renault)
10) Logan Sargeant (Williams/Mercedes)
11) Zhou Guanyu (Sauber/Ferrari)
12) George Russell (Mercedes)
13) Alexander Albon (Williams/Mercedes)
14) Valtteri Bottas (Sauber/Ferrari)
15) Esteban Ocon (Alpine/Renault)
16) Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
17) Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin/Mercedes)
18) Kevin Magnussen (Haas/Ferrari)
OUT) Lance Stroll (Aston Martin/Mercedes)
OUT) Lando Norris (McLaren/Mercedes)
Download our official app to Android It is iPhone and receive notifications of the latest news.
