Really Quick Review: Miami GP

Yeah there were overtakes but...

I had to think about this race for a couple more days to really come up with how I felt about it. It’s one of those races that’s neither good nor really bad. It’s one where I watched the whole race and liked the broadcast and was entertained enough, but the racing and the action wasn’t that compelling. There’s something off about this track and whether it can be fixed is debatable, but what isn’t debatable is how much fluff and pageantry they shoved in our faces. Like come on those driver intros?!!? Totally unnecessary and showing celebrity after celebrity, give me a break. I honestly don’t care who is going to the race to get some attention and have zero clue what is actually happening on track or who the drivers are and how the teams are currently performing. The one exception is the beautiful Jackie Stewart moment pushing through those body guards to drag Federer over for an interview. Absolutely beautiful moment and he is a legend of legends for it. Here are a few of the thoughts I have:

1. Max doing Max things. This seemed inevitable but Charles tried his best to boost the chances of a different winner with his qualifying performance, but Max did what Max does. He moved through the field like a hot knife through butter and was never challenged. Then he managed the heck out of those hard tires to make the potential Checo showdown not happen. Christian Horner on the broadcast talking about how they’ll be close and goosing us up for an epic end to the race, and Max said nah I’m just going to win it easy. And that’s exactly what he did.

2. Checo on the wrong strategy. Well it was either going to work or it wasn’t. There’s no way he could’ve started on the hards so he was going to have to drive the crap out of the car and hope Max would make a mistake. Well, Max drove brilliantly so the race was over and there was no contest. Good for Checo though getting off the line and holding his own to give himself at least a chance at the win. He looked good, made very few mistakes but there was just nothing he could do in this one.

3. Miami is a meh for me. I don’t really like this track. The focus is not on the racing, the action is lacking, and it is incredibly predictable what’s going to happen. Resurfacing the track was good and it clearly was smoother than last year making it better for the drivers, but it’s inherently boring. Essentially this track just leads to trains and trains of cars and some of the easiest overtakes of the season. Yes on paper all the over takes look good, but spend two minutes watching the footage and you’ll see that almost all of them were nothing more than DRS flybys. At least 8 of them can be chalked up to Max waving by whatever car was in front of him for two seconds. Keep changing the track and maybe it can lead to more exciting racing, but it’s clear that isn’t the focus of this race and they are happy with the reception of the rich and famous here. I fear this will be the same thing with Vegas. All the pageantry and money flowing with a meh race for us fans.

Alright next up is the Italian race with a million names in it haha. There’s something about races in Italy that just excites me and I can’t wait another week for this one. I really hope Charles can have a good showing and put together his brilliant qualifying performances for a maybe win…more like chance at a podium. It should be a good race and maybe Mercedes can turn things up a notch because yeesh they are falling off here. I wonder if Checo can keep up his form and give Max a competition or if Max will just cruise to another victory in what seems like an inevitable world championship. We shall see during the race next week!

-Mike