The much-hyped Miami Grand Prix is finally underway, but it wasn’t a smooth start for a couple of drivers in need of clean weekends.

Max Verstappen was the highest profile among the two, the Dutchman sitting out virtually all of second practice with a technical problem that leaves him without precious working knowledge of this brand-new circuit ahead of qualifying.

But Carlos Sainz’s absence from much of practice was far more dire. The Spaniard made major errors in both sessions to continue his string of scrappy weekends that threatens to drop him to second-driver status at Ferrari in a likely title-contending year.

As for the track itself, while the configuration has been praised by drivers, the quality of the surface is in doubt, leading to serious fears the Sunday race won’t meet Miami’s sky-high expectation.

MERCEDES BACK IN THE HUNT, AT LEAST FOR NOW

But arguably the biggest point of interest from Friday was the glimpse of pace from Mercedes after four difficult rounds languishing in the midfield.

George Russell was the team leader in both sessions, finishing second to Charles Leclerc in FP1 and beating the Monegasque in FP2. Lewis Hamilton had his run plan interrupted by a red flag in first practice and ended up more than 0.8 seconds off the pace, but he closed to fourth and just under a quarter of a second by the later afternoon.

It’s only practice, and we were absent a Ferrari and a Red Bull Racing car, but the consistency in Russell’s case in particular was impressive.

What’s behind the improvement?

Mercedes has brought its first upgrades to the car since preseason testing this weekend, with the changes focused on the front wing endplates and the rear wing, and though the team says they’re not a solution in themselves, the car was able to run closer to the ground before suffering bouncing and thus closer to its theoretical optimum set-up window than in previous races.

Part of that is down to the Miami track and prevalent conditions. This is a high-speed circuit, so cars are running with less downforce. Less downforce means the W13 is being pressed less aggressively towards the ground and into the ‘porpoising zone’. The warm weather is also ameliorating the car’s troubles with warming up the tyres, a key issue behind its poor weekend in Imola.

But Russell said it was too early immediately after practice to understand fully which of those influences was predominant and whether the team had indeed made a promising step forward.

“We don’t really understand … why we hit the ground running,” he said. “It’s definitely been a really productive day for us and probably the most productive Friday we’ve had.”

“The car is working well, but it’s only Friday. I’m not getting too carried away.”

Lewis Hamilton was similarly non-committal but confirmed the car was working better fundamentally.

“I think we seem to be quicker here and later on [Mercedes engineers] were explaining to us that we definitely have improved in some way,” he said. “Bit by bit we’re improving the car.”

The acid test will of course be qualifying, but Mercedes at least appears to be set for a good weekend this round, even if the permanence of the performance is still up for debate.

UNRELIABILITY BACK TO BITE RED BULL RACING

On paper this should be a Red Bull Racing track, the RB18 having this season been happy running the low downforce required by the Miami International Autodrome.

But in both sessions it was the third-fastest car behind Mercedes and Ferrari by around 0.2 seconds, and worse still, Max Verstappen lost of all the second practice session owning to a precautionary gearbox change gone wrong.

The Dutchman tapped the wall exiting turn 16 in FP1. He was able to continue, but with limited running due to an overheating gearbox, which the team elected to change between sessions to avoid an issue cropping up later and costing him track time.

But it took almost half an hour for him to get on track for second practice, and when he did take to the track he was immediately struck down by a hydraulics problem that forced him back to the pits, complete with flaming brakes, and he didn’t rejoin the session.

That means a lack of experience around the new track, a lack of long-run opportunity and a question mark over the reliability of his car.

“Just not a good day, and of course these days extremely painful, especially on a track like this where you want to be out there and learn the track and get up to speed,” he said. “I basically did four or five laps today — fast laps — so that’s not what you want.

“Of course I’ll try to catch up, but it’s just not ideal. Everyone is of course a bit more into the running, but not only that, we have no information on my car with what we have to do, so yes, it’s extremely painful.”

The team — and the similarly Honda-powered AlphaTauri squad — also struggled with cooling in the first session, when the ambient temperature was 34°C and the track was approaching 55°C. Both had to open up their bodywork to improve cooling, which come at the cost of adding more drag — not ideal for top speed at this circuit.

So far it’s been a long way from the momentum-building weekend Red Bull Racing had hoped for after dominating the previous round.

CARLOS SAINZ CRASHES AGAIN

If there’s one driver who needed to get through the weekend unscathed, it was Carlos Sainz. Two successive messy qualifying sessions and races through a mixture of bad luck and poor form have left him down on points relative to teammate and title leader Charles Leclerc, and if the championship fight tightens up between the Monegasque and Max Verstappen as much as expected, it’ll be very tempting to deploy the Spaniard in the second-driver role before long.

“I think it is more about a clean weekend more than anything else,” Sainz said ahead of the weekend, per Motorsport Week. “I’m still positive about it, and I just need a clean weekend to get my season going.”

But his start to the Miami Grand Prix has been anything but clean.

A spin in FP1 completely destroyed a set of the soft-compound tyres before he had a chance to set a flying lap with them. He then binned the car in second practice, again before getting a run on the softs, to give his team a hefty rebuild and deprive himself of crucial track knowledge.

To be fair to Sainz, mistakes were common in both sessions on the green and scorching-hot track. But then it always seems to be him getting caught up in some issue, and it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that the 27-year-old is lacking in the confidence game that is Formula 1.

“I’ve given everyone a bit of a rough Friday night, which is not ideal,” he admitted. “I think I’m still learning a lot of this car. This car is still surprising me, I’m not going to lie. It’s still things that are, let’s say, a bit out of my control that are surprising me.”

But he added that he hasn’t lost his self-belief, having endured a rough patch last year.

“I am the first one that is not happy with the last two crashes and I am the first one that is analysing it and trying to take conclusions from it,” he said. “I remember going through a very similar scenario last year where I crashed a couple of times and right after them came my best run of races in Formula 1. So I know how to come out of it.”

But he doesn’t have much longer to come out of it with his season intact. Another crash this weekend would be extremely costly.

DRIVERS WORRIED ABOUT RACE PROSPECTS

The drivers’ first sampling of the Miami International Autodrome returned mixed results.

The layout was met with generally positive reviews for its fast and flowing nature, although Hamilton criticised the surface and the fiddly second sector.

“It’s kind of crazy when you think that people in this day and age should be able to make a flat road relatively easily, but there are big, big bumps,” he said. “Otherwise the track’s quite nice to drive — except for the chicane. It’s so tight.

“Maybe in future they can remove that one and it’ll improve the track.”

But of greater concern to drivers is how slippery the surface is, particularly off line. Both practice sessions saw spins and crashes from some relatively innocuous errors or wide moments, and Sergio Perez said he expected that would lead to a lack of overtaking a poor racing spectacle on Sunday.

“It’s really disappointing that there’s no grip off line,” he said. “It’s a shame, because I think the racing will be bad due to that.

“As soon as you try to go off line there is no grip. It’s [as if it’s] wet on that side off line.

“It feels very gravelly off line, so racing will be hard.”

Lando Norris called the track “extremely tricky”.

“In FP2 it started better but then as soon as there was a little bit of marbles, it was terrible. It’s not going to be great for racing,” he added.

Although the Mexican added that the disrupted practice sessions, featuring three red flags between them, could combine with the weird surface to create unpredictable conditions and unusual strategies on Sunday.

WHAT’S NEXT?

A crucial final practice will live on Kayo from 2:45am Sunday morning before qualifying at 5:15am for a 6am start on Sunday.

Coverage of the Miami Grand Prix starts at 4am Monday for lights out at 5:30am.