2025 Miami GP Qualifying Preview

What could go wrong, did go wrong for Antonelli in the Sprint race. Lady Luck is having none of it! James Punt is surely due a change in fortune. His 2025 Miami GP Qualifying preview is below.

2025 Miami GP Qualifying

Another crap day at the office. Leclerc didn’t even make the grid, crashing on his sighter lap. Antonelli got jumped off the line and compounded the problem by not yielding at the first corner. Ocon was easily beating Gasly but pitted later and lost his track position. Again, not the slickest pit wall strategy by Haas.

Norris won the race thanks to a nicely timed safety car for him…again. Piastri was just unlucky but he had started to struggle before he pitted. Hamilton ended up third, which begs the question would Leclerc have got third had he not twatted it into the wall?

Verstappen was given a 10 second penalty for an unsafe release. He hit Antonelli, breaking his own front wing and forcing Antonelli to abort his pitstop and having to do another lap before he could move to slicks.

The ‘race’ finished under the safety car and it was all a bit wanky really. It was not any sort of form guide that’s for sure.

Setup Changes

The teams can now go and change the setups on the cars, but what do they do? The chance of rain tomorrow has now gone up to 70%, so slap a load more downforce on and hope the forecast is right, or setup for a good qualifying position and hope it is wrong and/or they delay the race start until conditions are deemed safe?

The visibility was so poor when the track was fully wet that a red flag was thrown. F1 is becoming a bit of a dry formula and very risk averse. My guess is that they will try and avoid racing on a wet track. Damp is OK, but not wet.

Even after three sessions, I am none the wiser as to who is hot and who is not. The fact that the teams will now be able to change their setups will move the goal posts again.

McLaren Best Package

McLaren have been the best package so far. Mercedes have been good but will they have to raise the ride height a little for the race? Ferrari have been very unhappy with the car and I expected them to be better for the sprint, so will it be worse for them?

We cannot just look at Sprint qualifying and expect a repeat, but I think we can look at qualifying form from the earlier races as the best guide, and even that isn’t great with the possibility of teams going for a more rain orientated setup.

The only logical choice I can see for pole is Piastri. He should have got the sprint pole but for a small mistake. Norris is the obvious alternative. He was very close yesterday but has been a little bit off Piastri in recent qualifying.

2025 Miami GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point Oscar Piastri to be the fastest qualifier @ 2.75 with SpreadEx, Livescorebet

-JamesPunt