REPORT: Sprint gains and Quali improvement in Miami

Following a tough Friday in Miami, the team are reflecting on a day of progression across both the Sprint and Grand Prix Qualifying.

Saturday started with the second Sprint race of the season. A 19-lap dash around the 19 turns of the Miami International Autodrome awaited our pair, with Logan starting from P18 and Alex from the pit lane.

Logan navigated the opening corner chaos whilst Alex emerged from the pits beyond the point of collision, meaning we were up in P13 and P16 respectively.

The Safety Car came in on Lap 4 and we were back racing, with Logan able to push from the restart with his alternative strategy on the soft tyres.

As has been the story in 2024, the midfield battle was incredibly tight. A DRS train soon formed, but that did not stop Alex from gaining a position on Valtteri Bottas.

At the head of this train was an almighty scrap between Kevin Magnussen, Lewis Hamilton and Yuki Tsunoda. The Dane displayed a similar level of defence to what we saw in Saudi Arabia and was being pinged by the stewards on almost every tour in the final stages.

Both MAG and HAM were handed time penalties, which elevated Logan to P10 at the finish line, with Alex in P13.

After an interlude that saw Lia Block finish P15 in the first F1 Academy race of the weekend, our F1 pairing were soon back on track for Qualifying.

Logan aborted his first flying lap in Q1 before setting a time good enough for P16, with Alex in P20 heading into our final attempt.

Our Thai racer improved with a 1:28.343 putting him P13 and through, but Logan narrowly missed out on joining his teammate in Q2 – his 1:28.487 was 0.035s shy of progression to the next stage.

Alex went deep at T17 on his opening Q2 push, whilst his final attempt of a 1:28.413 left him satisfied with the progress made over the last 24 hours, placing him P14 on the grid.

"When I look at yesterday, I knew we had the pace to get through to Q2 and I wanted to deliver that today," Logan shared after Qualifying.

"We executed our run plan well but it’s not easy when it’s extremely tight with one tenth separating several cars.

"I’m honestly happy with the changes we made to the car between sessions and how I drove.

"We’ll try to have another good race tomorrow taking any opportunity that comes our way.

"We have the pace and straight-line speed to keep a lot of people behind, so we need to give ourselves track position to make the most of it."

Alex continued our reaction by saying: "Today was more about tyres than anything else.

"Even just now in my Qualifying laps, I’m having to do a lot of race management with the tyres and it’s like the quicker you drive the slower you end.

"The hot track temperatures seem to hurt us a little more when running lower downforce for better straight-line speed, so by turn 11, the tyres are gone.

"I locked up on the corner when the front tyres went off, and then the rears will go off the next corner, so it’s just a bit tricky. Let’s see what we can do from P14 tomorrow."

Sven Smeets, Sporting Director, summarised our Saturday by saying: "We’re much happier with how today went as we have made progress from yesterday.

"It’s a shame that Logan, in his home race, missed Q2 by just thirty milliseconds; it would have been a massive result for him, and it was incredibly close.

"With Alex, maybe Q3 was just a little bit too far away but we saw how close it was and it was important to manage the tyres throughout the lap, so it was a Qualifying all about tyres.

"Tomorrow there will be opportunities available to us. We saw in the Sprint Race Logan starting in 18th and finishing 10th in an incident full race.

"Tyre management will be key to a good result. We’re looking forward to tomorrow."