Miami Grand Prix moves up 3 hours as storm threat looms
Miami Grand Prix moves up 3 hours as storm threat looms
F1 teams rush upgrades as rain risk reshapes Miami Grand Prix day; Verstappen and rivals eye potential chaos on slick track.
Sunday's Miami Grand Prix was moved forward by three hours to 18:00 BST because of the threat of thunderstorms.
The forecast rain makes the weekend unpredictable, with McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari all bringing major upgrades to their cars for this race, while Mercedes are keeping a low profile and saving their big step for Canada, where McLaren will have further new parts.
McLaren dominated the sprint race with Norris leading a one-two ahead of Piastri, but they looked less dominant in grand prix qualifying as the conditions shifted and the track slickened.
Verstappen hailed Red Bull's step forward after being a second off the pace at the last race in Japan, calling the update 'incredible' and 'massive.' 'When I get a car that is more together, I get more confidence, and I can finally also push a bit more,' he said. 'Then I try to always extract the most out of it. And that's what we've done. Honestly, in that lap as well, just trying to hang on to it, and it was good.'
He is one of the few drivers to run the new cars in wet conditions, along with the Ferrari pair and his team-mate Isack Hadjar, who crashed in the wet in pre-season testing in Barcelona.
Rain adds an extra factor of randomness and raises the risk of accidents and incidents, making relative competitiveness harder to predict as teams learn how the cars behave in wet conditions and with limited track time in rain.
