REPORT: A difficult afternoon in Miami

The team departs Miami empty-handed after a tough race where luck was certainly not on our side.

After a clean getaway, our pair were immediately in the midfield fight before we opted to bolt first into the pits.

On Lap 10, Alex switched from the mediums to the hards with Logan following him on the following tour to settle in for a long stint.

The Virtual Safety Car was deployed on Lap 23 to retrieve a bollard knocked onto the track by Max Verstappen, meaning all the hard work to keep those ahead within our pit window was sadly undone as they gained cheap pit stops.

On Lap 28, our bad luck continued. In a tight scrap with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen, the Haas clipped Logan’s right rear tyre at Turn 2, sending him helplessly into the barrier at Turn 3.

The Dane was handed a 10-second penalty, but for our Floridian racer, his home race was over.

During the Safety Car that followed, Alex climbed to P13 but had the oldest tyre life in the field at the restart.

Albono fought bravely, keeping the Sauber of Zhou Guanyu at bay despite the Chinese driver running fresh softs.

Oscar Piastri was forced to pit, which saw Alex momentarily climb to P12 before Nico Hulkenberg passed him at T1.

Soon our No23 was chasing Pierre Gasly ahead, closing right up in the DRS zones, but as his tyres continued to fade, the fight became increasingly more difficult.

Lance Stroll passed Alex off the track at Turn 1, and Zhou took advantage on the following corner.

The Canadian was handed a penalty, but Alex was unable to benefit as he locked up at T11 late on, dropping him to P19 in the classification.

"We’ve struggled with grip all weekend and then tried to do a long run on the tyres which didn’t work," Alex commented post-race.

"It’s probably one of the most challenging races I’ve had with the team, so we need to go away and understand why it was so difficult.

"It’s true, we didn’t have bad pace but the cars behind us were all on new tyres so I was the backstop for everyone else and you can’t really hold off cars on 20+ lap newer tyres than you.

"If we weren’t that last car, we might’ve been okay but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. When I locked up, I was trying to defend, and we now know some floor damage from a previous corner caused this.

"A really tough weekend but we’ll look to Imola where the team brings some small upgrades."

Logan's home race ended much sooner than he'd have hoped, and he shared: "A very disappointing way to end my home grand prix. It was decent race up until the incident.

"From what I could tell, Alex and I were both missing a little bit of pace today but still fighting on.

"Nonetheless, it’s been a positive weekend from the moment I got into the car in FP1.

"I’ve been able to get almost everything out of it. There are still little things to improve on but generally I don’t feel like there was much left in it this weekend. I’m feeling fine and ready to move on to a stint of European races."

Sven Smeets, Sporting Director, wrapped up our race day reaction by saying: "It’s been a really tough Sunday for everybody. We started the race well with both cars close to each other.

"We stopped both cars early to be on the aggressive side as we knew it was going to be a very close fight.

"In one of those fights Logan was taken out by [Kevin] Magnussen, while very frustrating we are happy Logan was completely fine and discharged.

"The accident caused a safety car that came at the completely wrong moment for Alex’s race.

"Alex did a great job trying to defend on older tyres, but it was impossible to keep position as in his fight he picked up floor damage. This caused his off a few laps before the end of the race.

"A day to quickly forget but we are looking ahead to Imola where we should bring some performance to the car."