TECHNICAL: The fact that confirms downforce gains compared to last year's Miami race
McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have all equipped their cars with a significantly less loaded rear wing for this weekend's Miami Grand Prix. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo analyses teams' choices in terms of downforce levels.
The Miami International Autodrome is 5.412 kilometres long, the race being run over 57 laps. The layout incorporates parking lots, service roads and some public roads with a total of 19 corners, seven to the right and 12 to the left.
The site is generally flat but some elevation changes have been built in, especially between turns 13 and 16, where the track runs under overpasses, including on and off-ramps for the Florida Turnpike, with an uneven surface.
As at Jeddah two weeks ago, there are three DRS zones here, the ends of which provide the track’s best overtaking opportunities, at turns 1, 11 and 17. The combined effect of slipstreaming and DRS produces very high speeds: last year, Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) hit 355 km/h in the race.
Yesterday saw lap times drop considerably compared to last season. 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.
McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes appear to have improved the downforce level of their cars significantly over last year. This increase in downforce have allowed them to equip their cars with a less loaded rear wing at the Miami International Autodrome as they were clearly eager to cut the drag levels induced by the rear wing.
Mercedes achieved the decrease in drag with a shallower mainplane while Ferrari has introduced a less loaded spoon lower plane. McLaren's tweak to its rear wing looks the most radical as the British outfit uses a less loaded upper plane and a significantly shallower mainplane compared to what they ran in 2024.
Interestingly, Red Bull look to run a similar downforce level as last year which can indicate they the Milton Keynes-based outfit has not gained a significant amount of downforce with the RB21 compared to its predecessor.
