The novelty of the Miami GP
The first free practice sessions of the new-new era of Formula 1 will last a little longer. This was announced by the International Automobile Federation itself, which has decided to extend the duration of the first and only test session of the Miami GP weekend: the FP1 on the circuit that revolves around the Hard Rock Stadium will in fact last 90 minutes and not 60, taking us back to the 2020 season, the last one in which Friday’s free practice sessions lasted an hour and a half by regulation.
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Between Sprint format and technical novelties
The choice is obviously made also and above all due to the particular nature of the weekend which sees the return of Formula 1 to Florida as well as the first of the three US weekends on the calendar: for the second time this season after Shanghai, Friday afternoon’s Sprint Qualifying and Saturday morning’s Sprint Race will return (local time), with the consequence that teams will have much less time to test the regulatory changes approved by the team principals’ vote last Monday.
The Miami GP weekend will also be a crucial weekend for technical and aerodynamic developments on the single-seaters of practically all 11 teams involved in the World Championship, which after more than a month of stoppage – caused by the cancellation of the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – should return to the track with many novelties and therefore significantly different from those we last saw in action in Suzuka.
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Unique experiment (for now)
For the moment, this is still a one-off solution and not a fixed rule to be repeated in all weekends with the F1 Sprint format: the novelty of the 90-minute FP1 is so far only for the next race but not for Montreal, the following weekend which still includes sprint qualifying and race. In the Miami GP, free practice 1 will start at 6:00 PM Italian time (12:00 PM local time) and no longer at 6:30 PM as initially planned.
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