The only American driver in Formula One had a somewhat decent showing in the Saturday sprint race ahead of the Miami Grand Prix. It's just not clear how long Logan Sargeant can stake claim to his seat with Williams as the Floridian heads into his home race Sunday under tremendous pressure to deliver or lose his job. The sprint race was won by three-time reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen, who is undefeated on the Miami circuit since its 2022 debut.
Formula 1 is back in the United States for the first time in six months and the first stop is the Miami Grand Prix, the race that was supposed to be the American showpiece. Miami was the big party when it debuted in 2022 but the question is: Has its status fallen enough that Sunday's race is simply just the first of three events in what has traditionally been NASCAR country? Tyler Epp, president of the Miami Grand Prix, acknowledged ticket sales for the third running of the event have been “soft” but felt there would be an uptick ahead of Sunday's race.
Five races into the Formula 1 season, Max Verstappen and the globe-trotting series have arrived in the United States for the first of three appearances in a year the Red Bull driver already seems to have under wraps. Verstappen has four wins through five races headed into this weekend's Miami Grand Prix, an event he won in its first two iterations. The actual racing has been dwarfed by off-track scandal and the soap opera has very much carried into Miami.