F1 Miami Grand Prix: Phillip Horton has a podium dark horse for Sunday's race

New venue

It’s been years in the making but Formula 1’s second annual event in the United States will finally make its debut this weekend as the championship rolls into Miami.  

Formula 1 is racing into South Florida at a specially-constructed quasi-street track in the campus of the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

Hard Rock Stadium is the home of NFL’s Miami Dolphins, has held the Super Bowl on six occasions – most recently in 2020 – but is now the centrepiece of Formula 1’s newest venue.

The championship is striving to take advantage of its growing popularity in the United States, with Miami joining Austin on the schedule, while Las Vegas will be added to the calendar in 2023 as well.

The 19-turn wall-lined Miami International Autodrome, which features a mixture of corner types, has been designed to promote overtaking, and drivers only got their first taste of the venue when practice started on Friday. It's the only all-new circuit on Formula 1’s 2022 calendar.

Two-all up front

It is two-all between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen in 2022 and they have been the class of the field. Leclerc won in Bahrain, Verstappen responded in Saudi Arabia, before Leclerc dominated in Australia and Verstappen then did likewise in Italy.

The momentum has ebbed and flowed between Ferrari’s F1-75 and Red Bull’s RB18 though neither has been infallible.

Red Bull’s unreliability has been its key weakness – forcing Verstappen to retire twice – while Ferrari displayed its first major wobble on home soil in Italy as an error from Leclerc restricted him to sixth.

With new cars that everyone is still striving to understand, hitting the ground running has been of utmost importance at Grand Prix weekends; Ferrari managed it in Australia while Red Bull missed the window, while it was the other way around in Italy.

It would be no surprise to see Verstappen (2.3) and Leclerc (2.78) trading honours again in Miami. Leclerc currently leads the reigning champion by 27 points.

Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes has not performed as expected, leading the seven-time world champion to rule himself out of contention this year

Mercedes now long shots

There was a time not long ago when discussion heading to a race weekend was not so much whether Mercedes would win but how large their advantage would be.

Times have changed. Mercedes is still striving to understand its misbehaving W13 and it is hopeful that some updates can be readied to bring to Miami. Those parts will not transform its prospects but will leave it able to assess whether it is heading in the right direction.

Mercedes cannot yet run its W13 at the ride height where it believes it can unlock huge aerodynamic performance due to the chronic bouncing – which does not show up in CFD or simulator running. That, along with poor tyre warm-up for qualifying, are key areas it is striving to address and remedy as swiftly as possible.  

That has left George Russell and Lewis Hamilton with only one podium apiece in 2022, with Hamilton already ruling himself out of contention for an eighth title, having fallen to seventh in the standings, 58 points behind Leclerc.

Hamilton (42) has a strong record in the United States, winning on his US debut at Indianapolis in 2007, and triumphing on Austin’s debut in 2012, but to repeat the feat in Miami would take an extraordinary turnaround. Russell (42) is the only driver to have finished each Grand Prix in the top five this year but if he is to take a maiden victory he will need a huge slice of fortune.

Take a chance on a midfielder?

Formula 1’s new regulations have allowed some teams to thrive if they execute a clean weekend. McLaren claimed a podium last time out in Italy while Alpine and even Alfa Romeo have demonstrated sufficient pace to contend for trophies if the stars align.

Alfa Romeo have already scored more points in 2022 than in 2020 and 2021 combined, with new recruit Valtteri Bottas (100) at the forefront of its charge, having classified fifth in Italy. He is now eighth overall in the Drivers’ Championship and the highest-placed driver without a podium.

Homegrown team Haas has scored in three of the four races but adding more points to its tally is probably the limit of its ambitions.

Recommended bets

Charles Leclerc @ 2.2

Valtteri Bottas top 3 @ 12.5