This weekend’s Miami Grand Prix could be in for a wet surprise as forecasts indicate thunderstorms on race day. This could be the first time F1 cars zip through heavy rain in Miami since the race’s inclusion in the sport’s calendar in 2022.
F1 teams and drivers gear up for a race weekend after a month-long break due to the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GPs as a result of the Iran war.
This has allowed teams to work on their cars to iron out issues and enhance performance. Miami could be viewed as a relaunch of the 2026 season, given the updates to the regulations that were announced recently by F1 and the FIA.
Consequently, the Miami GP could set the tone for the competitive order over the coming months, maybe until the summer break, unless a team achieves a significant breakthrough with performance.
However, the weather in Miami could play a big role in the way things play out over the entire weekend.
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With the Miami GP being a sprint race weekend, Friday’s practice sessions and sprint qualifying (2 May) will take place in warm and humid conditions.
Temperature is expected to peak at 31°C, while the qualifying session for the main race on Saturday (3 May) is forecast to be hotter at 33°C.
On Sunday (4 May), the temperature could be down by one degree to 32°C, but with 39% humidity and 100% cloud cover, a 37% chance of rain is forecast, a figure expected to rise, raising the possibility of thunderstorms.
While many teams are expected to arrive in Miami with new upgrades for their cars, McLaren is bringing an entirely reworked MCL40, as it looks to close the performance gap to Mercedes and Ferrari.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has revealed that his team will be back after a championship hiatus for the Miami GP with an all-new car. MotorBiscuit reported his comments:
“In our intent, there was always the idea to deliver a completely new car – especially from a aerodynamic upgrades point of view – for the North American races.
“So we could keep up with this plan. Obviously, the fact that the calendar has been changed sort of helped a little bit, like I’m sure helped all the other teams that could work more streamlined towards upgrading the car rather than being busy with racing.”
Stella highlighted that he expects other teams to follow a similar strategy with their cars, so the pecking order may not change significantly. He added:
“But I could say overall that across Miami and Canada, we will see an entirely new MCL40. Again, I would like to stress that this is what I would expect of most of our competitors. So not necessarily is going to be a shift in the pecking order, it will be effectively just a check who has been able to add more performance within the same time frame.
“And we also have some performance to recover if we look at Mercedes, and to some extent Ferrari as well. But we are quite happy with the development that we’ve been able to manage in the background. So hopefully we should be able to see a slightly more competitive MCL40 in Miami and then in Canada, considering that the last race was already a decent competitive performance in Japan. So we definitely look forward to the next races.”