Miami Report: Day 2
Progress on day two in Miami
Published
04 May 2024
Est Reading Time
3 min
Day 2 is officially over here in Miami as we saw Alex go racing in his second sprint of the season followed by qualifying for tomorrow’s Grand Prix. Let’s recap how the day unfolded:
Following yesterday’s difficult sprint qualifying, Alex and the team opted to make some adjustments to the car suspension setup, meaning our No.23 began today’s sprint from the pit lane.
A lap 1 incident involving both Aston Martins and the McLaren of Lando Norris resulted in an early yellow flag and safety car, meaning Albono was able to make up three places and close in on the rest of the pack.
As the safety car ended on lap 4, Alex went racing from P16 and had his sights firmly set on the green rear wing of Valteri Bottas.
After hunting down Bottas for seven laps, Alex was eventually able to make his move, going past the Sauber at Turn 1 to climb up to P15.
Albono continued to push in the final five laps, joining the back of a seven-car DRS train right until the chequered flag. Penalties to both Magnussen and Hamilton meant Alex would finish in P13 with a strong drive from the back.
Fast forward three hours and it was back to regular Grand Prix qualifying action at the Miami International Autodrome.
It was a scorching hot late afternoon in the sunshine state, with the track causing brutal degradation to the soft tyres on Alex’s FW46.
Managing this issue meant Albono had to make his few flying laps count. An initial time of 1:29.045 was then bettered in the final minute of Q1, with a 1:28.343 to sail through in P13 to the second round of qualifying.
In Q2, the tyre degradation issues continued and this difficulty in finding grip caused Alex to overshoot the hairpin at Turn 17, running wide but steering clear of the wall and any potential damage.
After boxing for a fresh set of softs, it was time for a final flying lap. Despite pushing hard, a 1:28.413 meant Q3 was just a stretch too far, meaning it will be a P14 start on race day.
Following Q2, Alex shared his thoughts, commenting, “Not where we wanted to be. P14 is progress from yesterday, but yeah, we tried some things with the car. I think in general they were positive.
“There’s still some things in the car that we just haven’t been able to cure this weekend. Tyres have been very tricky - I haven’t really been able to get the tyres to work properly.
“Struggling to get them to last a lap, nevermind eight or nine corners they seem to be going off already.
“Race pace, the car was ok in the sprint race, so it should hopefully suit us going into tomorrow.”
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