The result of the fifth race of the 2023 Formula One season confirms expectations in many respects: the Red Bull RB19 car designed by the Milton Keynes team, barring any reliability issues or serious errors from the drivers like Sergio Perez experienced at the Albert Park circuit in Australia, will leave no crumbs for the competition.
Max Verstappen finished the race 26 seconds ahead of the first (official) non-Red Bull car of Fernando Alonso, starting from the fifth row, reaffirming the technical superiority of the single-seater and ultimately his own over his teammate. Data analysis from the 2023 Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix shows, as expected, a struggling Ferrari especially on the harder compound, as the Italian side is now the fourth force after two good performances in Melbourne and Baku.
Alpine returns to dictate the pace among the midfield, even just a few tenths behind the pace of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari. Further back, many teams have shown a very similar pace, and it is also thanks to the starting position that Kevin Magnussen was able to bring Haas to points. After the steps forward shown at the Baku City circuit, McLaren falls again in Florida: the pace of the MCL60 continues to be insufficient and reliability problems persist.
Data analysis from Miami: Ferrari loses a lot above 200 km/h, positive pace only at low speeds
Already from the official pre-season testing session in Bahrain, it was clear that the SF-23 had a major deficiency above all: the lack of aerodynamic load that was abundant on its predecessor. Observing the comparison between some of the fastest laps of the race in Miami, this deficiency could not have been more evident, with the RB19 consistently gaining half a second in the high-speed section and other tenths on the straights even without the use of the drag reduction system, much discussed in recent weeks and one of the many aces up Adrian Newey’s sleeve for the car.
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On the other hand, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc exploited a (too) soft setup in the very slow section of the second sector, where they gained around one-tenth of a second on Sergio Perez in the fastest laps of the race. Overall, the seven tenths of a second lost by the reigning world champions and the two tenths lost to Fernando Alonso’s AMR23 bring the SF-23 back two months, when we saw a similar situation in Saudi Arabia. The difficulties on the hard tire were confirmed, with Carlos Sainz almost eight tenths slower than Sergio Perez on it after losing ‘only’ a few tenths on the yellow-banded C3.
Aston Martin is no longer a surprise, and the Spaniard has taken his fourth podium in five races thanks to the always-balanced Silverstone car. After struggling a lot at the beginning of the 2023 Formula 1 championship to overtake and defend on the track, the engineers led by Dan Fallows opted for a lighter setup in Miami: the AMR23 sacrificed part of its competitiveness in corners to go faster in straight lines, in particular by improving the efficiency of the car’s DRS system, as explained by formu1a.uno.
Even Mercedes can consider themselves satisfied with their pace, considering the moment the German team has been going through since the beginning of 2022: the data analysis from Miami shows a W14 only a few hundredths of a second behind the Aston Martin on average and about six tenths behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. In Brackley, they hope to see their customer team only in their mirrors after the introduction of the upgrade package in the next round of the season, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
