F1 Miami GP Live Commentary and Updates – FP1 & Sprint Qualifying
Friday's action from the sixth round of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
F1 action returns with its first trip of the year Stateside for the Miami GP.
It is the second sprint race format of the season, following on from the Chinese GP, which means teams and drivers will have just one 60-minute practice session to get up to speed before the revised sprint race schedule kicks in – starting with sprint race qualifying on Friday afternoon.
Practice starts at 5:30pm BST (12:30pm local time) followed by sprint race qualifying at 9:30pm BST (4:30pm local time).
An incident between Bottas and Piastri will be investigated after the session. The Sauber driver pulled into the path of his McLaren counterpart into Turn 1.
"You didn't tell me," he reports back to the team.
There are no flies on Leclerc, as he goes to P3. With three minutes left on the clock, that could be job done with the Ferrari driver nine-tenths clear of the drop.
Magnussen, currently P13 has reported being blocked by a Sauber in the tight Turns 13-14-15 complex, but it's very difficult to see where Zhou could have gone there.
After saying that, a serious moment of oversteer after getting on the Turn 7 kerbing ruins his first attempt. At least it's still pointing in the right direction this time.
After losing a lot of time earlier, Leclerc is the first driver to take to the track, catching up on learning his way around. It should be remembered that he took pole for the first Miami GP, so is no slouch around here.
Verstappen was quickest in the FP1 and, if the season so far is anything to go by, is the favourite to take pole. But beyond that, it really is anyone's guess.
The great thing about the upcoming session, is that we have no idea what is going to happen, with a red flag in FP1 limiting the running - especially for Leclerc, whos spin early on caused his retirement and the aforementioned stoppage.
Good evening and welcome to Miami for sprint qualifying. That's correct, there is no second practice this weekend, as F1 is once again racing to the alternate format.
A small shoutout goes to Alpine, with Ocon and Gasly ending practice inside the top 10. If they can take that into sprint race qualifying later that's a serious step in performance.
A nightmare session for Leclerc then due to his early spin and getting stranded at Turn 16. Everyone else got a minimum of 21 laps in, while the Ferrari driver got in three-and-a-half.
Verstappen reports he's overheated his softs so cannot extract the peak performance. Meanwhile Hamilton goes third fastest, just a tenth of a second off Russell's top time.
