Miami Grand Prix dictates no consolation
Alex Albon is first again at the main race in Miami.
It’s time to talk about the scores for all competitors in the 5th round of Formula 1.
A confident 9 points can safely be given to Max Verstappen, who was in the lead on Sunday, ahead of Sainz. After a few laps he overtook Leclair. Even the restart didn’t put him out of contention and gave his team the winning points. If Max doesn’t revisit his mistakes in qualifying, he risks ruining his title defence.
Charles Leclair – also gets a solid 9 points. This driver’s qualifying run, wasn’t too right. Failures awaited him in the 1st sector, continued in the 3rd. But that didn’t stop him from ending up on pole. After his rival Verstappen overtook him, he was left with only second place for his team on the podium of glory.
Eight points goes to Williams driver Alexander Albon. This weekend has not added to his team’s hope. But despite this, Alexander set the pace on the ‘hard’ which gave him a boost and after a restart at the end of the race he pulled into 11th place. After Schumacher and Vettel clashed, the judges awarded Albon penalty points and he moved up to 9th.
7.5 points for Lewis Hamilton. The British driver had a lot of confidence in his own abilities in the qualifying race, but his overconfidence let him down and he came 8th on the first lap, losing two positions early on. Two of his rivals he counterattacked, but in this heated battle he still couldn’t catch Bottas, but caught up with him in front of the caution car. Hamilton overtook his former teammate thanks to a crash.
Lance Stroll also gets a deserved 7.5 points. In Miami he qualified in the final qualifying for the first time of the season, but unfortunately he didn’t get an optimum lap in Q3. Having started from pit lane with his team-mate, he was able to snatch 11th place after all the crashes, penalties of the final race.
7 points goes to Carlos Sainz. For the first time since the race in Jeddah he was able to get on the podium. The crash that Carlos had suffered would have knocked him out for a long time but he was able to rehabilitate himself but was beaten in qualifying by 2 tenths of a second by his team-mate.
Two drivers, Valtteri Bottas and Pierre Gasly, also get 7 points each. Bottas crashed his race car at the weekend, forfeiting his second practice session, but a qualifying run earned him 5th place. Entering the corner, Valtteri snagged the wall and slid down to 7th in the standings.
Gasly was able to take 6th place, but unfortunately Hamilton, who overtook him, removed him from the race. Alonso crashed into the Alfa Tauri, after which Pierre failed to see Norris attacking him, hitting him in the rear wheel, thus leaving the Grand Prix twice without points.
George Russell gets 6.5 points in this Grand Prix. Russell never made it to the final as his race car was unbalanced. A second consecutive qualifying setback befell him. Just like Hamilton in previous races, he was unable to break through in the first stretch, getting stuck amongst the drivers of the other teams, giving him the opportunity to fight for 5th place.
Six points went to three drivers at once, Sergio Perez, Sebastian Vettel and Lando Norris.
The first technical stoppage introduced an imbalance in the race for the Briton. After pulling out into the flow of the speeding rival cars he was unable to break through.
Vettel made a mistake in the second qualifying segment.
Sensor problems caused Perez to lose out. He was never able to get ahead of Sainz and nearly left the race himself on lap two due to a failed attack attempt.
5.5 points for Guangyu Zhou. The Chinese driver had a wasted weekend. The qualifying race ended in the first segment, ducking at the end of the lap into a stream of rival cars before starting with technical problems which ended the race on lap 6.
Esteban Ocon, Daniel Riccardo and Mick Schumacher get 5 points. Let’s start with Schumacher, whose career Grand Prix was his 26th. Unfortunately, he never managed to get any points in the race, and he was in the top 10 of the experienced drivers who didn’t score any points in F-1
10th place was almost in Riccardo’s hands had he not received a penalty for driving off the track in an attempt to overtake his rival.
In qualifying, Ocon missed the race due to an accident on Saturday morning. But in spite of this, he still made it into the top 10 from the last row.
Yuki Tsunoda – 4.5 points. This weekend was not the best for the Japanese rider. He was a quarter of a second behind his co-driver in qualifying, and after tyre troubles he had to re-wire his race car. Even the restart did not play into his hands and came to the finish line only 13th, ahead of Latifi.
Fernando Alonso and Kevin Magnussen – 4 points. The Alpine drivers didn’t have to rely on a miracle this weekend, but in spite of this, Alonso still snatched 8th place. In doing so, he received five penalty seconds for hitting his rival Pierre Gasly. He then received the same penalty for cutting the corner.
Magnussen remains on track due to communication problems in qualifying and only has one lap series in the first segment. After a failed attempt to overtake Schumacher, he collides with Stroll and loses his front wing.
3 points goes to Nicolas Latifi. He was never able to realise his ‘hard’ potential and after a pit stop on lap 34 became the last man in the race. In qualifying Nicholas was slightly behind Albon, for whom it was not the best performance.
