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After Max Verstappen cruised to a dominant victory at Imola to claw his way back into the title battle as Ferrari hit trouble at home, round five of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship season heads to Miami, Florida this weekend for the inaugural Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix 2022. This will be the second American event, joining Austin, Texas on the F1 calendar with Miami becoming the 11^th different venue in the United States to host a Formula One Grand Prix.

 

 

2022 Miami GP Preview – A look at the Miami International Autodrome

 

 

The Miami International Autodrome is a purpose-built temporary circuit around the Hard Rock Stadium, the home of the Miami Dolphins NFL team and it’s private facilities in the Miami suburb of Miami Gardens, Florida. The circuit is 5.412 kilometres in length and features 19 corners, three straights a potential for three DRS zones and an expected average speed of 223kph. Top speeds are estimated to be 320kph. The circuit was designed to Formula One standards by track designers, Apex Circuit Design, for the Miami Grand Prix.

 

There are elevation changes too, with the main one between turns 13 and 16, with the circuit heading over an exit ramp and under various flyovers across uneven ground. The turn 14-15 chicane has an uphill approach, with a crest in the middle, then drops down on the exit.

 

This track, which will be within the private Hard Rock Stadium grounds will be using all-new and existing roads within, with new permanent asphalt pathways of the circuit integrated into the Hard Rock Stadium grounds. The track is a temporary-type circuit, which will not use any public streets that are located around the Hard Rock Stadium.

 

A few weeks before the Grand Prix, the circuit and its safety features will be set up just for the race weekend. After the race, the circuit will be dismantled, and the Hard Rock Stadium facility returned back to its normal state.

 

The Grand Prix circuit layout is 5.412 kilometres (3.363 miles) in length and runs in an anti-clockwise direction.

 

Race distance is 308.326 kilometres (191.584 miles) in length with 57 laps in total and 19 corners.

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2022 Miami GP Preview – A lap of the Miami International Autodrome

 

 

Click here on the link for the onboard lap of the new 5.412 kilometre Miami International Autodrome circuit.

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2022 Miami GP Preview – Tyres

 

 

Pirelli will be bringing with them to the Miami International Autodrome, the C2 white side-walled Hard tyres, the C3 yellow-marked Mediums and the red-branded C4 Softs alongside the green side-walled Intermediates and blue-marked Full Wets in-case of rain.

 

Drivers will have a fixed allocation of two sets of the hards, three sets of the mediums and eight of the softs.

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2022 Miami GP Preview – DRS Zones

 

There will be three DRS Zones at the Miami International Autodrome with the first detection point just after turn eight with the first activation zone just after the turn nine kink running down to turn 11. The second detection zone is after the turn 16 left-hander with the activation zone almost half-way down the long back straight in-between turns 16 and 17. The final detection point is just after the turn 17 hairpin with the final activation zone half-way through the last corner kink onto the main-straight on the run-down to turn one.

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2022 Miami GP Preview – Pitlane Speed Limits

 

Pitlane speeds will be 80km/h during practice, qualifying and the race.

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ICYMI: Verstappen cruises to dominant Emilia Romagna GP victory

 

 

Reigning champion Max Verstappen cruised to a dominant Emilia Romagna GP victory leading home Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez with McLaren’s Lando Norris completing the top three as Ferrari’s championship leader Charles Leclerc spun but recovered to sixth.

 

Verstappen got a great run off the line in slippery conditions following a pre-race rain band at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari to jump title-rival Leclerc and then controlled the Grand Prix with a string of fastest laps.

 

With Leclerc also losing a place to Perez into the opening few corners, Saturday’s F1 Sprint winner Verstappen did not have any threat as he reached the chequered flag by 16.527 seconds.

 

Ferrari took a chance with a late pit-stop for a fresh set of the faster C4 red side-walled softs before Red Bull followed suit, but as Leclerc pushed to reel in the leaders, he spun to sixth.

 

The full grid began on the green-marked intermediates, all running a fresh set of rubber except for Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton, who opted for a scrub set of the grooved tyre.

 

When the 63-lap Emilia Romagna GP began, pole-sitter Verstappen overcame yesterday’s wheel-spin issues by getting a brilliant launch off his grid slot and pulled from the left-side to cover off any threat.

 

However, Leclerc was much slower off the line, allowing Perez to get the jump on the F1-75 for second place and then had to defend from the MCL36 of Norris, who squeezed the Ferrari into fourth at the Tamburello Chicane.

 

There, Carlos Sainz’s horrible bad luck continued as his F1-75 ended up stuck in the gravel after tangling with McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo through the second part of the chicane.

 

It looked as though Ricciardo touched the kerb and slipped wide to tap Sainz into a spin – the investigation ended with no action. Ricciardo forced to pit and continued on in 18^th.

 

Sainz was then stuck in the gravel trap and retired as Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher fell from 10^th to 17^th after suffering a half-spin, as his rear-axle slid as he touched the sidepod of Fernando Alonso’s Alpine A522 entry.

 

The safety car was deployed at the end of the opening tour to pick-up race leader Verstappen, with Perez second over Norris, Leclerc and Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen.

 

Mercedes’ George Russell, meanwhile, got a solid start to jump from 11^th to sixth, as the Aston Martin duo of Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll made similar progress to climb up four positions.

 

Verstappen opted not to follow the Red Bull pit-walls suggestion to dive in for slick tyres and the rest of the field remained on intermediates despite reports of the circuit drying.

 

The safety car came in on the fourth tour, and the Red Bull’s charged away at the restart by 1.5 seconds from Norris, who covered off Leclerc into the Tamburello Chicane.

 

It took until the eighth lap for Leclerc to pass Norris with the latter oversteering out of Ravazza to allow the former to get into the slipstream of the McLaren and fly by on the inside into Tamburello.

 

From there, Leclerc was 6.2 seconds behind title-rival Verstappen and 3.3 adrift of Perez.

 

Over the next seven laps, those gaps dropped a bit as Verstappen lead by 5.5 seconds over his Red Bull team-mate Perez with Leclerc 1.9 seconds behind the Mexican.

 

Verstappen reported over the team radio that he was ready for slicker rubber if the safety car was deployed again, but the Dutchman remained on circuit for the time being as Ricciardo dived in to take a chance on the mediums.

 

Ricciardo instantly started a string of personal best efforts to indicate the crossover from the inters to the yellow-branded C3 mediums.

 

Although Ferrari’s pit crew emerged in the pit-lane, Verstappen and Leclerc stayed out as Perez and Russell – who eventually made their way past Magnussen at the Variante Alta after running deep into the Tamburello Chicane – were the leading drivers to stop.

 

Leclerc had clear air to cut the eight second gap to Verstappen until the following tour, on lap 19, as the leading two dived into the pits.

 

Leclerc rejoined in-front of Perez but with the new 2022 tyre temperature regulations, struggled on the cooler tyres and dropped back to third.

 

Perez, having overtaken at Villeneuve Chicane, again provided the buffer to Red Bull team-mate Verstappen who pulled out a lead of 7.5 seconds.

 

Leclerc, now with his rubber up to optimal temperature, could have passed Perez for second place after the Red Bull driver locked his front-left into Variante Alta and missed the chicane to cut the grass.

 

But whilst Leclerc could close, with DRS still disabled despite the whole field on mediums, he was unable to pass again and settled behind the Mexican.

 

Leclerc struggled, unlike Verstappen, to manage the front-right tyre graining in the F1 Sprint.

 

Verstappen looked to have retained his solid pace as the Red Bull driver’s lead exceed by ten seconds on the 32^nd tour.

 

The reigning world champion started lapping into the low 1:20’s each tour, running 0.3 seconds faster than team-mate Perez, and even lapped the Mercedes W13 of Hamilton on the 40^th lap.

 

With Leclerc’s chase of Perez evaporating, Ferrari called the Monegasque driver in for a fresh set of red-side walled C4 compounds on the 50^th tour and only took one DRS zone to breeze past Norris into third place.

 

Red Bull reacted over the following two laps to pit both it’s drivers by stopping Perez first and then Verstappen for the softs.

 

Leclerc had a seven-second gap to Perez, but on the 53^rd tour, he jumped the kerbs at the Variante Alta Chicane and spun to the outside wall.

 

The Monegasque-driver broke an endplate although he hit the wall side-on to avoid suspension damage, continuing on to pit for a new front wing and another set of softs and emerged back down in ninth place.

 

This eased the pressure on Verstappen, who despite reported drops of rain in the final couple of tours, reached the chequered flag to claim the Emilia Romagna GP victory, his second win of the campaign.

 

The Dutchman also posted the fastest lap for good measure.

 

Perez came home in second for a Red Bull one-two, with Norris rounding out the top three.

 

Mercedes’ Russell was fourth, despite the Silver Arrows not adjusting his front-wing aero balance during his pit-stop, but the Briton still edged out on top in a thrilling late-battle with Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas.

 

Leclerc salvaged a sixth place after a late damage limitation recovery to fight by Vettel and Tsunoda, whilst Magnussen and Stroll completed the top ten.

 

Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon took 11^th place in the classification and ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly who was 12^th, whilst Hamilton was unable to overtake the Frenchman despite a hard battle, settling for 13^th.

 

BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon finished the Grand Prix in 14^th after being hit with a five-second penalty due to an unsafe release when swapping his inters for mediums, which forced Hamilton to lift off in the pits and fell a position.

 

Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Zhou Guanyu ended the race 15^th and in-front of Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi and Haas F1 Team’s Schumacher who were 16^th and 17^th respectively.

 

Ricciardo stopped for a set of the white-marked C2 harder tyres and wound up a low-18^th.

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2022 Miami GP Preview – The Situation

 

 

Charles Leclerc comes to Miami sitting on top of the World Driver’s Championship standings with 86 points and a 27-point advantage to Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen who is second on 59 points, whilst Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez is third and a further 32 points behind the Monegasque-driver and on 54 points.

 

The first four rounds of the season has seen great racing, shock and drama, with Leclerc and Ferrari the current championship leaders, though Verstappen and Oracle Red Bull Racing are gaining momentum.

 

Verstappen’s domination of the Emilia Romagna GP brought the Dutchman back into the championship fight after two retirements in the first three Grands Prix. Verstappen is currently 27 points behind leader Leclerc, who finished outside the top two for the first time this campaign at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari and ended the race sixth after suffering a podium-costing crash.

 

Further back, there is plenty of interest around Mercedes this weekend.

 

The reigning World Constructor’s Champions are still yet to solve the problems of it’s W13 racer with George Russell and the struggling seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton fourth and seventh in the standings, with the latter convinced he is out of the 2022 title-battle.

 

Mercedes do have upgrades planned for this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, and they are set to be their most major yet.

 

Championship leader Ferrari will also be bringing with them an update to try and solve it’s porpoising issues.

 

Scuderia Ferrari heads to Florida, on top of the World Constructors Championship standings with 124 points, with an 11-points lead over nearest rivals Oracle Red Bull Racing who are second on 113 points, and Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team are a further 47-points behind the Scuderia in third place on 77 points.

 

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top Ten) and Constructors Championship standings.

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2022 Miami GP Preview – F1 2026 Rules and Regulations

 

 

On Tuesday April 26, the Formula One Commission were in London for the second meeting of the year following four successful rounds of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship campaign across three continents. FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem chaired and opened the proceedings, congratulating the Formula One community for the entertaining start to the 2022 season.

 

The following discussion points and decisions were made during the meeting:

 

F1 Sprint Races

 

With the first of three F1 Sprint events of the 2022 season popular with fans and stakeholders at the recent Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Formula One and the teams were championing the idea of adding on an extra three F1 Sprint weekends for the 2023 campaign, running with the same format as this season. Whilst supporting the idea of an increased number of Sprint events to six, the sport’s governing body, the FIA, is still evaluating the impact on its trackside operations and personnel and will provide feedback to the commission.

 

2026 Power-Trains

 

The key objectives for the next generation of power-trains, set to be introduced from the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship season onwards, have been previously presented and centred around four main areas:

 

• Maintaining the Spectacle – The power-units for 2026 will have similar performances to the current designs, utilising high-power, higher revving V6 internal combustion engines and avoiding excessive performance differentiation to allow better race-ability.

 

• Environmental Sustainability – The 2026 power-trains will include an increase in the electrical deployment to 50% and use 100% sustainable fuel.

 

• Financial Sustainability – Work is continuing on to define, consolidate and improve the Financial Regulations regarding the power-trains, with the aim to reduce the overall costs for competitors whilst retaining the cutting-edge technological showcase that is Formula One.

 

• Attractive to More Engine Manufacturers – The regulations are made with the intention to attract newcomers to join the Formula One at a competitive level.

 

As the development of the regulatory framework for the 2026 Power-Train continues, the FIA set out a number of major targets relating to financial regulations, performance parameters and sustainability to the Commission, which offered positive feedback for this framework, which does not require approval under the current governance structure.

 

Objective related to the Power-Trains will result in concurrent updates to the aerodynamic regulations, and the FIA has set the following preliminary targets following simulation work by it’s aerodynamics department. These targets were sent to the Commission:

 

• Significantly reduced drag to improve efficiency and sustainability to complement the power-train characteristics.

 

• Improve and maintain on recent lessons learned about closer, competitive racing with cars being able to follow each other.

 

• Reduce car dimensions.

 

• Reduce or contain car masses.

 

• Sustainability – Continue the path of standardisation or simplification of strategically-selected components for cost-cutting measures. Expanding the usage of sustainable materials or technologies and focused on recyclability.

 

• Continued innovation on car safety, moving toward active and connected safety systems.

 

 

F1 Helmet Cameras

 

Following the trial of latest generation of helmet cameras over recent Grands Prix, they have proven to be a great success, with positive feedback received from the fans. Therefore, it was proposed and unanimously approved to update the 2023 Technical Regulations, mandating the use of helmet cameras for all drivers from the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship season onwards.

 

Reduction in Tyre Usage

 

The Commission unanimously agreed to trial a reduction of the tyre allocation from 13 to 11 at two Grands Prix in the 2023 campaign. This will be done to evaluate the impact of the reduction in tyre-allocation of track running, with it’s main objective to move to a more sustainable use of tyres in the future of Grand Prix racing.

 

In the trial for next year, the FIA will mandate the tyre choices for each qualifying segment. With the harder compound being set for Q1, the mediums for Q2 and softs for Q3. If any sessions are declared wet, then the tyre choice will become free. For the two events where the qualifying experiment will take place, drivers will be allocated four sets of softs, four mediums and three hards.

 

All regulatory changes are subject to approval by the World Motor Sport Council.

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2022 Miami GP Preview – Audi and Porsche agree to join F1

 

 

Volkswagen Group’s two famous marque’s Audi and Porsche will join Formula One after stating that the move will bring in more money than it will cost, according to VW Chief Executive Officer Hebert Diess.

 

Discussions by the board of directors about the two automakers plans had caused divisions, said Diess on Monday at an event in Wolfsburg, where the German brands are headquartered.

 

But Audi and Porsche, which next to VW’s China business are the groups most important income suppliers, made a case saying a Formula 1 commitment will bring in more money to Wolfsburg than without one.

 

“You just run out of arguments,” Diess said.

 

There has been months of speculation about the two famous brands joining the pinnacle of motorsport, which for majority of the last decade as been dominated by Volkswagen’s arch-rival Mercedes.

 

Diess, who stated on Monday that Porsche’s preparations to enter Formula One were more advanced than Audi’s, also explained that the timing of the decision has been heavily impacted by the sport’s new power-train regulations that will come in for the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship season.

 

“As Markus Duesman (Audi chairman) always tells me, you usually make up one second per season on a medium-sized racetrack simply by optimising details,” Diess continued.

 

“But you can’t catch up on that when you join a new team: you need five or 10 years to be among the front runners. In other words, you can only get onboard if you have a major rule change.

 

“That’s coming now, and it will also come in the direction of 2026, when the engines will be electrified to a much greater extent, including with synthetic fuels. That means you need a new engine development, and you need three or four years to develop a new engine.

 

“That means you can decide now to do Formula 1 – or then probably not again for 10 years. And our two premium brands think that’s the right thing to do and are prioritising it.” Diess concluded. Credit to Sky Sports F1 for the quote.

 

Volkswagen has not previously been involved in Formula One but has worked with Red Bull in the World Rally Championship.

 

It is expected that Porsche will join up with Oracle Red Bull Racing, who they have been linked up with for a few years and who have their own engine division focused on the 2026 rules and regulations.

 

Audi’s link-up has been less clear at this stage. They were thought to be close to a deal with McLaren, but both brands denied negotiations taking place.

 

German publication Auto Motor und Sport reported that Aston Martin, Sauber (Alfa Romeo) and Williams Racing are now the more likely options.

 

The decision came as Volkswagen prepares for it’s possible listing of Porsche AG in the fourth quarter of this year, though sources have said the legendary manufacturer’s entry inro Formula One would only be likely to be happening in a few years’ time.

 

The Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix 2022 race weekend kicks off Friday May 6 with Free Practice 1 and 2, followed by Free Practice 3 and Qualifying Saturday May 7, then the 57-lap Race Sunday May 8.