Problems for the Mercedes in free practice: Antonelli fifth and Russell sixth. The Reds and Verstappen’s Red Bull improve
Formula 1 is back after a month’s stop due to the conflict in the Middle East and the cancellation of the grand prix in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. We start again from Miami and in the first hour and a half of free practice, between fast laps and race simulations, the best time was Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari SF-26. The changes made by the Maranello mechanics to the Red have given the desired results although there is no need to have too many illusions because in the past Ferrari had been ahead of everyone in free practice only to be overtaken by Mercedes in qualifying tests. It certainly wasn’t a good Friday for the “silver arrows”. World championship leader Kimi Antonelli, after being in front of everyone for a long time he had to give up on the final round. From Mercedes they explain that there was an anomaly on Antonelli’s engine, there was no time to resolve it before the end of the session. Kimi didn’t try a fast lap on the soft tires at the end. It didn’t get any better George Russell, English he didn’t find the setupmade some changes that further complicated the balance. He then returned to the track with qualifying tyres, but was unable to improve.
Ferrari did well
Charles Leclerc came out of this first day well: in addition to the best time, he clocked up 29 laps, a high number. He seems to have found confidence in the evolved Ferrari, but also Lewis Hamilton is in top positions. English has in fact obtained the fourth half. McLaren remains a bit of an unknown: Plates better than Norris. The world champion finished only seventh fastest while his teammate was third behind Leclerc and Max Verstappen. The Dutchman’s Red Bull was one of the positive surprises of the Miami free practice, even if the car is not yet perfect: one of the problems of the blue single-seater is the chassis, because the engine is said to work very well. But the innovation introduced in Miami by Red Bull with the macarena in a different version than the one used by Ferrari seems to have given good results, bringing Max back to the highest levels after the anonymity of the first three grands prix.
