Conclusions from the inaugural Miami Grand Prix

Max Verstappen continued his trend of winning every race he finishes in the 2022 Formula 1 season to make further inroads into Charles Leclerc’s World Championship lead in the maiden Miami Grand Prix.

Here are our conclusions from F1’s newest race…

What’s the difference between a great F1 venue and a poor one? Increasingly, it seems, it is a simple matter of perception, of the hype it can generate.

For years the Sochi circuit was lambasted for its unimaginative layout, which snaked around the stadia of the 2014 Winter Olympics and rarely, if ever, produced exciting racing.

The original proposals for a Miami GP back in 2018 centered around a circuit based in the city’s port, but in building a track around the Hard Rock Stadium – home to the Miami Something Or Others apparently – has F1 made the same mistake again?

Like Sochi, which at least had real water in the vicinity instead of a fake marina so ludicrous it almost seemed specifically designed to cause a commotion on social media, Miami ultimately proved to be an event to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Mick and Seb tangle at Turn 1

Watch all the key action from our first race in Miami #MiamiGP #F1

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 9, 2022

As with Liberty’s other masterstroke, the divisive sprint race format, those with a vested interest in its success were determined to focus only on the positives, which seemed to begin and end with the scale of the event, but as the weekend progressed the negatives became harder to ignore.

Lewis Hamilton likened parts of the track to a car park – an assessment likely to send a shiver down the spine of anyone old enough to remember the Caesars Palace track of the early 1980s – while Sergio Perez, describing the surface as “a joke”, was among