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NEED TO KNOW: The most important facts, stats and trivia ahead of the 2025 Miami Grand Prix
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Formula 1 heads stateside this weekend for Round 6 on the calendar, the Miami Grand Prix. Ahead of the race, Need to Know is your all-in-one guide with statistics, driving pointers, strategy tips and plenty more.
With the Sprint making its return, the format for the event looks a little different to the traditional schedule. Free Practice 1 and Sprint Qualifying take place on Friday, May 2, followed by the Sprint and Qualifying for the Grand Prix on Saturday, May 3 and the Grand Prix itself on Sunday, March 4.
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Vital statistics
- First Grand Prix – 2022
- Track Length – 5.412km
- Lap record – 1m 29.708s, Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 2023
- Most pole positions – Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez, Max Verstappen (1)
- Most wins – Max Verstappen (2)
- Trivia – The circuit is set in the Hard Rock Stadium complex in Miami Gardens, home to the NFL’s famous Miami Dolphins franchise
- Pole run to Turn 1 braking point – 170 metres
- Overtakes completed in 2024 – 93
- Safety Car probability – 67%
- Virtual Safety Car probability – 67%
- Pit stop time loss – 19.9 seconds (including 2.5s stationary)
The driver’s verdict
Jolyon Palmer, former Renault F1 driver: Miami is a bit of a mix of a couple of big braking events, which you get on a lot of modern circuits.
That’s Turn 11 and Turn 17, at the end of really long straights, so you’ve got to be good on the brakes. They’re obviously overtaking opportunities but also areas to make mistakes and lock up and blow a lap.
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The first sector is a fast, sweeping set of corners through S-Bends and you’ve got to pick your line, watch the kerbs – that’s important – and if you get fractionally off line you can lose track grip.
The triple apex left-hander, Turns 6-8, is tough on the front-right tyre and a particular problem in the race, and the exit is crucial as it leads onto a long straight.
ONBOARD: Max Verstappen’s 2024 Pirelli Pole Position Award lap at the Miami Grand Prix
Miami GP polesitters
- 2024 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
- 2023 – Sergio Perez (Red Bull)
- 2022 – Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
Miami GP winners
- 2024 – Lando Norris (McLaren)
- 2023 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
- 2022 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
Norris claimed his debut F1 victory at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix
Tyre and strategy insight
Pirelli will bring a tyre range that is one step softer than the selection used during last year’s Miami Grand Prix, with the C3 as the hard compound, the C4 the medium and the C5 the soft.
The fact that it is a Sprint weekend also means that the slick tyre allocation changes a little; each driver still receives two sets of hard tyres, but they receive four medium sets rather than three and six softs instead of eight, bringing the total to 12 sets rather than the standard 13. The number of wet-weather tyres remains the same.
READ MORE: What tyres will the teams and drivers have for the 2025 Miami Grand Prix?
Pirelli’s weekend preview reads: “The surface of the track that runs around the stadium is very smooth, exposing the tyres to moderate longitudinal and lateral forces. Thermal degradation will be a major factor, as temperatures are expected to be very high, given that last year’s track temperature exceeded 55C.
“The surface was relaid in 2023 and, as with the other temporary Grand Prix circuits, grip levels will increase significantly the more the track rubbers-in across the weekend. The presence of support races for the F1 ACADEMY and Porsche Carrera Cup North America will only add to this phenomenon.
“So far, the Miami Grand Prix has been a one-stop race, including last year’s. The medium was the tyre of choice for the opening stint for 15 of the 20 drivers, before a switch mainly to the hard, with just a couple of drivers opting for the soft, which actually displayed relatively low degradation.
“The performance differential between all three of last year’s compounds, C2, C3 and C4, was quite small. The strategy, particularly the timing of the pit stop, was affected by a Virtual Safety Car, which then morphed into a full Safety Car period.
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“It will be interesting to see if this year’s softer compounds will open the door to a two-stop strategy.”
The Sprint will again feature as part of the Miami Grand Prix weekend
Current form
The Miami Grand Prix weekend will begin with a new name at the top of the championship standings, after Oscar Piastri’s commanding performance last time out in Saudi Arabia saw him claim a third win of the season as well as moving up to the head of the leaderboard.
That off-track moment in the rain-affected Australian Grand Prix aside, Piastri has been in consistently strong form so far in 2025 – and while he now becomes the hunted rather than the hunter, McLaren CEO Zak Brown believes that the 24-year-old will only get stronger.
However, the weekend ahead could pose some interesting challenges for Piastri from his rivals. Lando Norris might be trailing his team mate by 10 points in the standings, but the Briton scored a memorable debut victory at last year’s race in Miami – could a return to the scene of his triumph help him to climb back to the top?
Max Verstappen, meanwhile, is another driver to experience past success at the Miami International Autodrome, having taken two Grand Prix wins as well as proving victorious in the Sprint back in 2024. After being hit with a five-second time penalty in Jeddah, the Red Bull man will likely be keen to make up for that disappointment this weekend.
Elsewhere, Ferrari arrive into the event off the back of Charles Leclerc claiming his first podium of the year in Saudi Arabia, while Mercedes faced a low-key outing at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. It will be fascinating to see which team has the better performance in Miami.
And behind them, the midfield battle remains thrillingly close. A double-points finish last time out has given Williams a firm grip on P5 in the standings – but Haas remain only five points behind, while Aston Martin, Racing Bulls, Alpine and Kick Sauber follow. Will the addition of the Sprint this weekend help any of those teams to grab some valuable extra points?
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Iconic moment
The Miami International Autodrome has provided plenty of memorable moments since its arrival onto the F1 calendar in 2022. On this occasion, though, we’re rolling back just one year to the 2024 race, in which Lando Norris famously took his long-awaited first F1 victory.
Saturday’s Sprint had not gone well for the Briton, who found himself out of the running on Lap 1 when a four-car squeeze at the first corner tipped his McLaren into a spin.
However, Norris’ fortunes dramatically improved come Sunday, with a mid-race Safety Car coming at the perfect time for the man who had originally started from P5 on the grid. Having extended his opening stint, Norris pitted to emerge as the race leader, a position that he maintained to the chequered flag to seal an emotional maiden win.
Relive the moment in the video below.
2024 Miami Grand Prix: Lando Norris crosses the line to take his first ever F1 victory
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