F1 Miami GP live commentary and updates - free practice
Coverage of the sole free practice session from F1's Miami Grand Prix weekend
Live Commentary
By: Jake Boxall-Legge
We'll take a break for now, and we'll make our return for sprint qualifying in just under three hours' time.
Don't forget to stay across Autosport and Motorsport.com all weekend, and tune in for our Race Center Live coverage on Saturday and Sunday!
Motorsport Race Center Live
Free practice over
And that's the session - Piastri headlines the session, over Leclerc and Verstappen.
Norris was tracking ahead of Piastri on his lap, but couldn't finish it before the red flag. Neither Mercedes driver was able to set a soft-tyre time either, while Hamilton's tour was also interrupted. Both Alpines had just got on track, but immediately were forced to box with the red flag.
Bearman seemed to approach Turn 11/12 normally, but the car just rotated on him at low speed and he made the glacial trip into the barrier as a result. It doesn't look like the car is too damaged, but that's the end of his session - and probably for everyone else to boot.
Bearman hits the wall at Turn 12
Ollie Bearman has brought out a red flag with a crash with five minutes left on the clock. He's come to strife at Turn 12, and is facing the wrong way.
Verstappen lost a bit of time in sector two in his first lap on softs; he still goes top, but only by 0.120s than Sainz. Definitely seems to be a theme of the softs running out of grip by the time we hit the second half of the lap.
Charles Leclerc then goes fastest by 0.074s, but only briefly as Piastri smashes down a 1m27.128s.
Alonso goes up to eighth on his soft-tyre lap, a smidge ahead of Hulkenberg's lap.
Sainz, who has his own run on softs, then moves up to first with a 1m27.678s - Albon's about to a lap, but gets held up a little by Antonelli in the final part of the track. He ends up 0.277s behind his team-mate.
Hulkenberg has a second crack at a lap on used softs, and moves up to ninth - 0.515s off Russell's fastest lap.
Sauber team principal Jonathan Wheatley looks reasonably content, although we're awaiting the big guns to have a go on the C5s. Fernando Alonso begins his own effort on the red-walled Pirellis.
As close as you like! Ronald gets centimetres away from the Ferrari SF-25.
Photo by: Ronald Vording
We've got a few longer runs on the mediums at the moment - we've got the C3-4-5 suite of Pirellis this weekend, so they've got to see how long the softer compounds will last.
Hopefully we'll see a final flurry of soft-tyre laps towards the end of the session to gauge where the field stacks up ahead of sprint qualifying later.
Norris looked like he got baulked by Ocon into Turn 17 while on a lap - the Briton had to second-guess where the Haas driver was going, as Ocon got out of the way too slowly.
Speaking of Haas, it looks like it'll be at the races this weekend - it's been a bit on-and-off this season with its high-speed deficiencies, but Bearman's within a second of Russell's fastest time so far.
Piastri immediately renders that order useless by moving up to fourth. Used mediums for that run - we've got a couple of runners now trying out hards, while Hulkenberg is now doing some runs on the soft compound.
Top 10 order after 30 minutes of practice
We're half-way through the session - and our top 10 looks like this:
1. Russell, 2. Antonelli, 3. Sainz, 4. Norris, 5. Albon, 6. Verstappen, 7. Hadjar, 8. Piastri, 9. Hamilton, 10. Leclerc.
We've hit a little bit of a lull as the drivers pull into the garage, give their feedback, and get a few changes. Antonelli meanwhile displaces Sainz from second - so we're running with a Mercedes 1-2 at the moment.
Ferrari's special...HP edition?
Ronald has described this as "so amazing", which I believe was utterly dripping with sarcasm.
Photo by: Ronald Vording
Racing Bulls' special peach edition
Photo by: Ronald Vording
Our man on the ground, Ronald Vording, is commanding his usual position trackside - and he's sent us some images down at Turn 17. Here's our championship leader:
Photo by: Ronald Vording
Norris shakes off the earlier tool-based cockpit intrusion and fires his way to the top with a 1m28.391s, but Russell finds even more time to set a 1m28.058s.
Russell is up to a 1m28.488s and is currently fastest. Verstappen set the best first sector in his follow-up and looked like he was about to set the pace again, but he only improved to a 1m28.606s.
A beautiful bit of s***housery from McLaren CEO Zak Brown, who sips from a bottle labelled "tire water!!!". As much as I'm loathe to mansplain the joke, McLaren was accused last year of injecting water into its tyres to keep them cool.
We almost forgot about the third bonus livery, which Nico Hulkenberg's off has just reminded us of: Sauber has reworked the green bits on its car to make it look more...splashy?
It's not that different to the usual design, hence why we (I) forgot...
Sauber Miami livery
Photo by: Sauber
The two Williams drivers swarm to the top: Sainz does a 1m29.198s, as Albon is just 0.022s behind.
But Verstappen then posts a 1m28.634s to raise the bar, continuing his running on the mediums.
"The car feels so different," Russell continues. He doesn't seem to like what he's started the weekend with.
Norris's torch incident has been noted by the stewards and will be investigated after the session.
Verstappen now does a 1m29.808s to go top, on the medium tyres. Gripes elsewhere; Tsunoda feels his seat is too high, while Russell feels his Mercedes' steering is 'exceptionally heavy'.
Regardless, Russell then does a 1m29.798s to go fastest.
Piastri kicks off with a 1m30.059s, as his team-mate Norris finds a mechanic has left a torch in the car. Not a particularly bright moment for McLaren...
Two fresh liveries to talk about: Racing Bulls is running a nifty little pink number to bring the South Beach vibes on track. Meanwhile, Ferrari has put some blue and white on the car.
When you feel like a North American Racing Team tribute livery could be in the offing, you get a little disappointed...
Racing Bulls Miami livery unveil
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
New father Max Verstappen - who arrived in Miami late last night - got something in the baby shower: a new floor. His team-mate Yuki Tsunoda will have to persist with the old one for this weekend.
Free practice begins in Miami
Oscar Piastri and Pierre Gasly are first to hit the road, as there's a lot of ground to cover in the sole practice session of the weekend. Time is money, after all.
Current air temperature of 27C in Miami, and 38C on-track. It's going to be quite a warm session, although the cloud cover should generally keep that pretty static.
Five minutes until we get underway for FP...it's just FP, seeing as there's only one. Can we call it FP1? It feels a bit wrong...
Miami's medium-term future on the calendar was already pretty secure, with a contract until the end of 2031 - but it's now set to stick around.
Whether you like the circuit or not (look, it's a fun race to attend, but the second half of the track is awful), it's a statement of how far F1 has come in the US market. Miami now has the longest contract term of any circuit on the calendar.
Miami signs contract extension to 2041
A whopping 10-year extension has been added to the Miami Grand Prix's contract with Formula 1, meaning that it will remain part of the calendar until 2041.
The Miami race joined the calendar for the first time in 2022, and this year marks the fourth race at the Miami International Autodrome, located around the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.
Alpine registers new brake ducts - but won't run them in Miami
In every race weekend, the media gets sent a document of all the new updates that each team brings along to a race weekend for the first time. Among this, Alpine made a note of its new front brake ducts and associated suspension components to improve the airflow in this area.
But, given the nature of the sprint weekend and limited time to test the parts, Alpine has decided not to run them and will hold off until Imola to try them out for the first time.
"We're not going to run it this weekend," executive technical director David Sanchez explained. "I think when we considered everything, the sprint weekend, all the details, we thought let's keep it until the next round. But we do have it to ready to go.
"It's always a blend of trying to improve aerodynamics, look after what we can do better with the brakes, tyre heating or cooling, just like to blend everything. We have it, but it's not going to go on the car this weekend."
Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
Live coverage of F1 Miami GP practice
Hello everyone, and welcome to our Live coverage of the Miami Grand Prix weekend! The session begins in 35 minutes' time - and don't forget, this is the only practice session of the day! It's a sprint weekend after all, and we'll also be bringing you sprint qualifying later in the day.
Top Comments
Trending
Latest news
Corey Lajoie regrets '12 fans' comment he made about lower NASCAR divisions
As three riders reach Q2, could KTM finally surprise in Aragon MotoGP race?
Sebastien Ogier leads WRC Rally Sardinia after Thierry Neuville crashes out
