On Track

Practice report by Aramco: Miami GP

Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One™ Team got its first taste of the Miami International Autodrome across a comprehensive Friday practice programme.

Ahead of the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, drivers Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll completed a combined total of 93 laps at F1's newest circuit.

Sebastian

Sebastian evaluated the circuit on the Soft tyres in FP1 and ran solely on the red-marked compound throughout the one-hour session.

The German posted a baseline 1.41.917 lap in the opening phases before later producing a 1.34.636 run to conclude his first stint.

With 24 minutes remaining, Valtteri Bottas brought out the only red flag of the session which disrupted Sebastian's second running window.

Following this nine-minute stoppage, Sebastian rejoined the circuit on new Softs and classified 14th overall by completing a 1.33.024 run in the closing minutes.

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In FP2, he added 23 laps onto his 24 from FP1 and again placed 14th overall.

After assessing the mid-range compound at the start of the session, Sebastian resumed Soft running before again switching onto the Mediums at the close of the hour.

Opening FP2 with a 1.34.672 marker, he continually improved his lap time to post a personal best 1.31.393 and closed the session with long-distance data collection.

"I think we have made a good start to the weekend, but I feel that there is still room to tweak our car and adapt to the track.

"It is a tricky circuit and most of the corners are blind, which makes it difficult in terms of navigating traffic. This will likely be an important factor in qualifying, especially in Q1 when you need to find space.

"The red flags today disrupted some of our running, but we adapted as best we could because you want to get as many laps as possible on a new circuit.

"There is still pace on the table and if we can make some progress overnight we can hopefully edge closer to the top 10 tomorrow."

Lance

Lance was one of the first drivers to complete a lap of the Miami International Autodrome on Friday afternoon and performed his initial FP1 running on the Soft compound tyre.

After posting a 1.39.513 benchmark, he continued to grow in confidence and concluded his baseline performance running with a 1.34.638 lap time.

Like Sebastian, Lance's FP1 preparations were also impacted by the red flag but the Canadian resumed the session by producing a 1.33.576 lap to place 16th overall.

In FP2, Lance divided his running across the Soft and Medium compounds by first targeting one lap performance before switching his attention to long running.

He refined his pace during the session that was twice red flagged in a pair of stoppages for Carlos Sainz Jr and Nicholas Latifi.

First posting a 1.45.098, Lance produced a personal best 1.31.631 on the Soft tyres to end Friday in 16th overall, completing a total of 46 laps during the day.

"Going to a new venue is always fun and they have created an interesting track here in Miami that offers a good driving challenge. Turns Four to Seven are a fun sequence of corners and allow you to attack.

"The sessions were disrupted with a few red flags, which is never ideal when you are learning a new track, but we did what we could.

"The energy around this weekend has been awesome so far and I am excited for qualifying tomorrow when dealing with traffic on a busy track will be especially challenging."