Pirelli hints at the potential role of the hard compound in Miami
On the back of the opening day at the Miami Grand Prix, Formula One's sole tyre supplier Pirelli has hinted that the white-banded hard compound might play a crucial role in the remainder of the weekend.
Having shown promising pace in the sole practice session, Andrea Kimi Antonelli continued to impress in qualifying. The 18-year-old looked quick on the mediums in SQ1 and SQ2 before he he went on to beat McLaren's Oscar Piastri, the championship leader, by 0.045 seconds.
Lando Norris appeared to be the quicker McLaren driver in qualifying, but he ended up third, a place behind his team mate Piastri. Reigning champion Max Verstappen elected to complete two laps in the final stage of the sprint qualifying, and he was right as his second lap was the quicker one, but it was still only enough for P4 on the grid.
With his stellar last push lap, the Bologna-born driver sealed his first ever P1 grid slot in style, at a track he has never driven before, in an incredible history-making effort.
Antonelli became the 14th Italian driver to set the fastest time in a Formula 1 grid-deciding session. The last time dates back to the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix, when Giancarlo Fisichella put his Force India on pole.
Pirelli's Motorsport Director Mario Isola commented: “First of all, allow me as an Italian to congratulate Kimi for this wonderful pole position. It’s the first time since Pirelli returned to Formula 1 in 2011 that one of our countrymen has topped a qualifying time sheet.
As for the tyres, the Italian manufacturer brought a tyre selection that was a step softer than in the previous season, with the C3 serving as the Hard, the C4 as the Medium and the C5 as the Soft compound
In the only free practice session of the weekend, the two Racing Bulls drivers Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson were the only ones to run the hard rubber to fully assess its performance, if one excludes the usual scrubbing-in lap from the Aston Martin pair.
This decision from the other nine teams is a clear sign that the teams aim to save the hardest compound for Sunday’s race even if the previous three Miami races saw the one-stop strategy dominate proceedings.
"As for tyre behaviour, the Medium and Soft performed as expected, while the decision by the vast majority of the teams to save two sets of Hards clearly show that this compound will play a crucial role in the race.
"As we saw in Jeddah, having two sets of Hards also allows for more flexibility for the teams in the event of any potential safety car periods," stated Isola.
As for the performance level, lap times were considerably quicker compared to the same session last year, by around 1.4s in FP1 and 1.2s in Sprint Qualifying.
Clearly, apart from the natural performance improvement from the cars, the decision to bring a range of compounds one step softer than last year’s also had a significant impact.
"The track got quicker progressively and significantly, not just from one session to the next, but also during each session, confirming that the surface is rubbering-in considerably the more the cars run. We expect this trend to continue tomorrow.
"In free practice, of course we didn’t see any real long runs aimed at Sunday’s race, with only short simulations, possibly more useful for assessing set-ups for the Sprint.
"As teams can work on their cars after the Sprint, the short race has increasingly become the perfect simulation session for the actual Grand Prix and that will also be the case tomorrow," noted the Italian.
