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The on-track action in Formula 1’s inaugural Miami Grand Prix might not have matched the off-track exuberance, but it still provided plenty of winners and losers.
The title race closed up while there was a mix of calamity and brilliance in the midfield, with a first-time F1 points finish squandered and comeback drives in no short supply.
Our writers pick out the biggest winners and losers from the fifth round of the 2022 F1 season.
Winners
MAX VERSTAPPEN
Any win over your title rival is a great result, especially when trying to claw back a disadvantage.
But the turnaround nature of Max Verstappen’s Miami victory makes it feel even more valuable.
He felt he only managed four or five laps of any worth on Friday amid problems that began with a brush of the wall and ended with his brakes on fire due to an incorrectly fitted hydraulic line. That left him still trying to figure out the circuit and his set-up in Q3.
To come from that situation to inflict a defeat on Ferrari and Charles Leclerc that would’ve been absolutely emphatic without the late safety car bodes very well for Red Bull’s season from here. – Matt Beer
GEORGE RUSSELL
The timing of the safety car may have aided Russell but it was part of a deliberate strategy to run long on the high probability that somebody would get it wrong.
He weathered the early pain of the hard tyres from 12th on the grid, dropping positions and fighting with his old Williams team. But he kept it clean and settled into a consistent stint that would have yielded a solid points finish even without the safety car.
He probably made passing Lewis Hamilton harder than it needed to be, but the result was the same. Taking fifth place after he looked at all sea in qualifying is encouraging, even if he never got anywhere near his Friday peak. – Josh Suttill
ESTEBAN OCON
Ocon started from the back after his practice shunt ruled him out of qualifying and he didn’t look like making much of an impression on the race judging by the opening laps.
But a long stint on the hard tyres brought him right into play when the safety car was required, and his Alpine team chose to bolt on the soft tyres.
The aggressive choice paid dividends as he emerged from the midfield dogfight to secure eighth place, beating his penalty-hit team-mate Fernando Alonso and salvaging points from an otherwise tricky weekend. – JS
Alex Albon
Albon’s gutsy points drive wasn’t as a result of an alternative strategy like in Melbourne, but some canny driving after the safety car restart.
He’d battled with former Williams driver Russell in the opening stages of the race and made the most of Lando Norris and the Haas duo getting stuck amongst the Aston Martin drivers to stay within reach of the top 10.
At the restart, he was 12th and while the Aston Martin and Haas cars around him all ran into each other, he picked his way through the chaos and nicked the final point, just 0.2s adrift of finishing ahead of Alonso when the two-time champion’s penalty was applied. – JS
MIAMI
Whatever your view of the Miami festivities, this event has certainly got noticed and made an impact. And the race ended up tense and incident-packed enough to go down as a memorable triumph of a debut for this grand prix.
It was a little fortunate to do so, however. Fan (and IndyCar driver) opinion on social media was drifting towards the Miami GP being a tedious dirge going into its final quarter. That wasn’t entirely fair – things were pretty eventful behind the well-spread top four and there had been a decent early lead battle.
But there wasn’t a lot to get excited about between Red Bull and Ferrari at that point, and had the race been flat to the finish then perhaps the talk in the week ahead might’ve been more about drivers’ dislike of the surface, some of the barriers and parts of the layout.
The safety car revived the spectacle, though. Overall, there was more than enough this week to make Miami 2023 worth looking forward to – and for Las Vegas to aim to exceed. – MB
Losers
FERRARI AND CHARLES LECLERC
This ended up being only a narrow defeat for Leclerc, a rewarding return to the podium for Carlos Sainz and still great points for both championship fights.
So it certainly wasn’t all bad and ‘loser’ is too harsh a term really.
But that’s two defeats in a row, two races where a rival as strong as Red Bull was simply faster. Two very different sets of conditions and track layout too.
If that’s now the trend, that points lead won’t last long. – MB
MICK SCHUMACHER
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner suggested this week that the points floodgates might open for Mick Schumacher once he scored in F1 for the first time.
He’s probably right. But what impact will losing a first points finish in the final laps in a collision with his friend and mentor Sebastian Vettel have?
Schumacher certainly shouldn’t get all the blame for the collision, which could be interpreted as either driver’s fault or a racing incident really. It’s just unfortunate given how many incidents and disappointments he’s notched up since Haas got on the pace that the most costly one should come in this manner. – MB
ASTON MARTIN
Miami was Aston Martin’s performance high of a troubled 2022 season so far, and it could easily have had both cars in Q3.
The pre-race fuel problem that meant both Lance Stroll and Vettel started from the pitlane wrecked all that.
They still had good race pace and made some feisty progress, Vettel in particular, with running long working out well for them.
Despite the last-minute incidents both Vettel and Stroll had with Haas drivers, Aston Martin doesn’t quite go away empty handed because Alonso’s pair of penalties means Stroll gets a point. But it could’ve been a fair few more.
It’s typical of Aston Martin’s season that just when the car looked quick, it encountered a pretty bizarre range of race day calamities. – MB
McLaren
Quite the contrast from its Imola podium high as McLaren failed to score a point.
Norris was a helpless victim in the incident with Pierre Gasly but even without that, it looked as if he would only walk away with a couple of points.
Daniel Ricciardo showed flashes of speed and made some trademark daring overtakes but he fell 3.5s shy of the final point in 11th place on the road before dropping to 13th with a penalty for earlier going off-track to stay ahead of Magnussen. – JS
AlphaTauri
A double top 10 start turned sour for AlphaTauri as Yuki Tsunoda plummeted from ninth to the back in the opening stint and Gasly collided with Alonso and Norris.
Tsunoda bolted on the softs for the restart but couldn’t make an impression despite the chaos.
Fortunately for the team, Haas, which is just one point behind it, also had a calamitous race after early promise, but it does fall further adrift of the teams ahead.
There will be plenty of head-scratching for AlphaTauri after it overachieved in qualifying but severely underdelivered on Sunday. – JS
