F1 Miami GP live updates: Max Verstappen tops Sprint qualifying

Alex Davies, Patrick Iversen and more

May 4, 2024 at 11:27 AM EDT

And be sure to check out Madeline's full breakdown of the track before the sprint race kicks off at noon.

Stake F1 driver Valtteri Bottas will serve a three-place grid penalty during the sprint race today after stewards determined he "unnecessarily impeded" Oscar Piastri during sprint qualifying on Friday.

"On the straight before Turn 1, Car 77 was being driven slowly on the racing line after finishing a fast lap, while Car 81 was approaching on a fast lap. Car 81 and Car 77 needed to take evasive action to avoid a collision. The primary responsibility rests with the driver to ensure that he does not place himself in a position whereby he unnecessarily impedes another driver. Here Car 77 was driving slowly on the racing line and caused to the situation that ensued. However, during the hearing both team and driver of Car 77 admitted that the team had not warned the driver of Car 77 that Car 81 was approaching on a fast lap. That was obviously an error on the team’s part and contributed significantly to the incident.

In light of the above, we impose a penalty of a drop of 3 grid positions at the race."

Bottas originally qualified P18, so he'll start P20 after the penalty. That bumps Logan Sargeant to P18 and Alex Albon to P19.

Andretti Global owner Michael Andretti is at the Miami GP on Saturday, seen here speaking with Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack ahead of F1 sessions.

This week, a bipartisan group of congressional members sent a letter to Liberty Media president and CEO Greg Maffei, raising “concerns with apparent anti-competitive actions that could prevent two American companies, Andretti Global and General Motors (GM), from producing and competing in Formula 1.”

Michael's father, Mario Andretti, visited Capitol Hill this week after the letter was sent and met with Rep. John James (R-Mi), one of the 12 signees. The letter comes after Formula One rejected Andretti Global’s planned entry to the sport for 2025 or 2026 in January.

During the team principal press conference on Friday, Krack was asked about the Andretti situation. He joined his fellow team principals in saying it was a question for FIA and Formula One Management, not team principals.

"We're really passengers in this," Krack said. "We read also from the news and the internet, in between the Newey stories, so I cannot really add anything more."

GO FURTHER

Bipartisan congressional members raise anti-competitive concerns over Mario Andretti’s F1 rejection

Speaking after a disappointing session that leaves him starting P11 in today's sprint race (and teammate Lewis Hamilton P12), George Russell said he wasn't quite sure what wasn't working for Mercedes. The soft tires felt good in FP1, he said, but they couldn't find the sweet spot on the mediums — which everyone was required to run for the first two sessions.

"I've got no doubt we'll move forward in the sprint race," Russell said. But the bigger concern is solving the team's qualifying struggles before the battle for starting position in Sunday's grand prix.

The racing world remembered Ayrton Senna on Wednesday, the thirtieth anniversary of his fatal crash at Imola. With F1 in the States this week, I thought it’d be fun to look back at one of his lesser-known wins: the 1991 U.S. GP in Phoenix, Arizona.

Senna won from pole for McLaren in a race with a few fun little nuggets. It was the season’s first race (odd, right?) and the debut race for future F1 great Mika Häkkinen. A protester disrupted practice. And it was the last U.S. GP until 2000 — and the last one in Arizona. My favorite note: the formal name of the race was the XXVIII Iceberg United States Grand Prix. Naming a race in Phoenix the “Iceberg Grand Prix” is some incredible hubris!

Media day in Miami was always going to be dominated by one topic—Adrian Newey’s departure from Red Bull next spring — but there are still plenty of unanswered questions.

I’ve not seen a media scrum as big as the one for Max Verstappen on Thursday in some time. We stood three deep, trying to squeeze in our recorders to hear what he was saying. Given that, in Australia, he was clear about the need for “key figures” to remain with the team, a reference to the threat of Helmut Marko leaving, surely the departure of Newey, the greatest designer in F1 history, would sow fresh doubt?

Apparently not. Verstappen said that while he would obviously have wanted Newey to stay, he understood the decision and had faith in the design group at Red Bull. As he put it, “My future is within Red Bull at the moment.”

The “at the moment” is the same sort of caveat we’ve heard quite a bit in recent months from Verstappen amid the turbulent start to Red Bull’s season. In Japan, he said there was zero reason to leave so long as he stayed happy. It’s the same kind of condition we hear here.

Because the Mercedes rumors are not going away. Toto Wolff managed to irk Christian Horner with his comment about Verstappen in China, while George Russell was upbeat when considering the possibility of being teammates next year in Miami, saying he was “all for it.”

So long as Mercedes has a free seat and questions linger at Red Bull, the Verstappen links aren’t going to go away. Another subplot in this silliest of silly seasons.

GO FURTHER

Verstappen swarmed at F1 media day; Did Ferrari whiff on its Miami GP livery?

Is Daniel Ricciardo back? It’s only one session, but it’s still a massive lap from him after such a rough start to the season: fourth place on the sprint grid after a really great lap, less than two-tenths off Sergio Pérez in the Red Bull.

It’s the first big result Ricciardo has had since his Mexico weekend at the end of last year, back when we thought he was in the kind of form that could lead to him being a Red Bull seat contender for the future.

He's had a lot of struggles since. Ricciardo wasn’t comfortable with his RB car through the early races of the year, leading to a chassis change for China — where he got taken out by Lance Stroll.

Ricciardo was buoyant on the radio after that lap, exchanging some enthusiastic noises — “ki ki ki, hiii!” — before saying: “Yeah wow. Awesome, awesome. It's good. It's good. We belong towards the front, so, happy for everyone.”

The job now will be for him to convert that into some points in the sprint, and get off the mark for the season.

Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine is producing the docuseries on the all-women racing series, and it will hit Netflix globally in 2025.

The expectation is for it to provide a behind-the-scenes look at F1 Academy, not just the on-track action but also the personal, more human aspect with the drivers, their families, teams and sponsors.

"We started Hello Sunshine to change the narrative for women, and Susie Wolff and F1 Academy are doing just that by creating new opportunities in the thrilling world of motorsport,” Witherspoon said in the press release. “As these dynamic and fearless drivers break barriers behind the wheel, we are excited to partner with Netflix to tell the stories of these powerhouse leaders. What we know is that when we put women at the center, people show up to watch."

As many will recall, the Netflix docuseries played a role in Formula One's boom in popularity. F1 Academy has become more accessible this season for fans, with the series being broadcast live for the first time this year. This docuseries and Netflix's involvement are steps in raising awareness around the all-women driving category.

In the press release, Susie Wolff, managing director of F1 Academy, said, "We want to be the rocket fuel that drives female participation in our sport, both on and off the track. To have the F1 Academy docuseries launch globally with Netflix is not just a huge step forward in visibility for our mission, but also a resounding statement about the momentum and demand for women's sport. We want to inspire and empower the next generation of young women, and Netflix will open up F1 Academy to a global audience of existing and future fans."

After it emerged that the FIA had received a request for dispensation for 17-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli to race before turning 18, Williams team boss James Vowles denied that he would be in the car for the next race at Imola.

While it’s unclear where the request originated, it fueled talk that Antonelli could replace the struggling Logan Sargeant in the next race on home soil in Italy. Antonelli currently races in F2 but has recently been doing some private testing in an old Mercedes F1 car.

Speaking on F1 TV after news of the FIA request emerged, Vowles said: “There was a rumor going around that he’ll be in the car from Imola – he won’t be in the car for Imola.

“What we’re doing at the moment is evaluating drivers for ’26 and ‘25, and what we really want is the right driver pairing for those two years, as when you go through regulation changes, you don’t want to be changing drivers. So you’re looking for the right pairing for that period of time.”

Antonelli is widely seen as the next protege within the Mercedes F1 setup. Toto Wolff regrets that he missed out on Max Verstappen’s signature when he was 16 — Red Bull could offer an F1 seat immediately with its junior team — and has always been eager to ensure Antonelli does not slip through his hands.

There have even been suggestions that Antonelli could step straight into the Mercedes F1 seat for next year as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement, talk fueled by Wolff saying in February there was a chance to “be bold” with the future driver decision.

Should Mercedes not opt to go with Antonelli, Vowles is known to be a huge fan of the Italian and said there was “no doubt he’s got huge skill to him,” but also noted how recently he was down at the lowest level of single-seater racing.

“He was in a F4 car 20 months ago, that’s where he is, it’s a very different proposition to most,” Vowles said. “We’ve been talking to four to five drivers at the moment for that period of time. I’m quite happy to sit back a little bit and wait.”

A literal “lol” from Max Verstappen there on the radio when he’s told that he’s on pole. “This was terrible!” — he’s referring to his mistake going through the chicane that undoubtedly cost him some time. The lap was still good enough for P1 by a tenth from Charles Leclercl.

Lando Norris is the biggest loser in all of that. His SQ2 time would actually have been quick enough to give him sprint pole, yet he’s down in P9 after a terrible first sector meant he lapped nearly a second slower.

That's Sprint pole-sitter Max Verstappen assessing the lap that will give him P1 in tomorrow's sprint race. "Maybe that last session was just incredibly difficult to get the tires to work," he said, as all the drivers had to switch from the medium to the soft tires.

He felt better in practice than in qualifying he said.

Hardly a shocker to say that the three-time world champion has topped the timing sheets in today's sprint qualifying. He'll followed by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, teammate Sergio Pérez, and in something of a surprise, RB's Daniel Ricciardo.

After riding high through the first two sessions, McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris placed P6 and P9.

From the high of Lewis Hamilton’s sprint race efforts in China, Mercedes is back down to earth with a bump today. Both of its cars are eliminated in SQ2, George Russell in 11th and Hamilton in 12th place. Hamilton glanced the wall on his final lap there.

“I’ve got nothing, man,” Hamilton says on the radio en route back to the pits before being told by his race engineer, Bono, that he’s been bumped. Another tough weekend in swing for Mercedes right now.

Both Russell and Hamilton are out in SQ2, they'll start P11 and P12. Ocon, Magnussen, and Tsunoda go with them.

Norris topped the session in his heavily upgraded McLaren, followed by Pérez, Leclerc and Verstappen.