Sergio Pérez Eyes Championship Lead in South Beach: Autos W2W4

Sergio Pérez Eyes Championship Lead in South Beach: Autos W2W4.  Formula 1 is racing around Hard Rock Stadium this weekend for the 2nd annual Miami Grand Prix.

This is the 1st of a record-tying 3 races in the U.S. this season (Austin & Las Vegas). Max Verstappen is looking for his 2nd straight Miami win, but teammate Sergio Pérez is hungry for his the championship lead.

Formula 1: Miami Grand Prix
Practice 1 – Friday, 1:25 ET on ESPN2
Practice 2 – Friday, 4:55 ET on ESPN2
Practice 3 – Saturday, 12:25 ET on ESPN
Qualifying – Saturday, 3:55 ET on ESPN
Race – Sunday, 3:25 ET on ABC (coverage begins at 2 ET)

ABOUT THE TRACK – Miami
Name: Miami
Length : 3.3 Miles
Turns 19
Laps 57

Red Bull Racing are 4 for 4 in 2023, with 2 wins from defending champion Max Verstappen, and 2 wins from Sergio Pérez. It’s their first time winning the 1st 3 races of a season, let alone 4.

Red Bull would be the 1st team since Mercedes in 2019 to win the first 5 races of a season (would be 7th instance).

Red Bull have led nearly every lap of every race this season, leading 200 in total. The other 9 teams have led 16 laps combined.

Red Bull has 25 1-2 finishes since the Austrian team was founded in 2005. Eight of those have been with Max Verstappen & Sergio Pérez, including 3 this season. Their most in a season is 5 which was done last year.

Red Bull seeks its first 1-2 finish in the United States in team history. The last team to do it all was Mercedes in 2019.

Double World Champion Max Verstappen has been the championship leader for the last 21 races dating back to last season. It will be 350 days exactly that he has been out front on the day of the Miami Grand Prix.

Verstappen holds a slim 6-point lead over his teammate Sergio Pérez, who won last week’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix convincingly.

Max Verstappen’s 21 straight races leading the world championship is the longest streak by a Red Bull driver, and the longest by any driver since Lewis Hamilton in 2014-15 (25 races).

The all-time record (37 straight races by Michael Schumacher from 2000-02) is in reach this season if he continues to lead the standings at the conclusion of the São Paulo Grand Prix on Nov. 5.

Max Verstappen won the inaugural Miami Grand Prix last year. Should he win it this year, he would become the first driver in F1 history to win the first 2 races on a U.S. circuit.

Check out Shemon and Sheppard 2-6pm for lots more on this and other sports news!

Formula 1 will make it's second trip to Miami for the Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix. This is a busy time in the F1 schedule. Miami is the second of five raves in six weeks. This following a mini-break between Australia and Azerbaijan where we saw multiple teams roll out upgrade packages to their cars. It looks like McLaren's car is much better compared to the one they started 2023 with. There are a few changes to the Miami Grand Prix from last year. The biggest change is the location of the paddock. Teams will have weekend headquarters on the field at Hard Rock Stadium. The idea behind this is to give the fans more access to the spontaneous moments they couldn't see last year. The track has also been repaved. The 2022 Miami Grand Prix saw some deterioration towards the end of the race. This will hopefully fix that problem.

The weekend festivities get underway on Friday with the first two practice sessions. These 1-hour sessions will be held from 2:00-3:00pm and 5:30-6:30pm. This is significant because these will be the first extended practice sessions teams will have since Australia. Azerbaijan was the first weekend this season with the sprint race. This format eliminates the long runs teams get a ton of data in. Miami will give the teams the track times needed to optimize the car for Sunday's race. Saturday has another practice session from 12:30-1:30pm. Then Qualifying is from 4:00-5:00pm. The race will start at 3:30pm on Sunday. 2022 was a bit of an underwhelming race. Hopefully 2023 gives us a better race.

The 2022 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix champion is odds on favorite to defend his title. Covers.com has Verstappen listed at -250 to win. Verstappen is currently atop the driver standings and Red Bull has the best car on the grid by a wide margin. Max has won two of the first four races and finished second in the other two.

Perez has been impressive to start the 2023 season. He has two wins and a second in the four races this season. Last weekend at Azerbaijan Perez pulled off an impressive double taking the sprint race on Saturday and the Grand Prix on Sunday. Last weekend Red Bull did not get in the way of Verstappen trying to chase down Sergio. Hopefully the team allows the drivers championship to play out on the track and not get in the way of a true battle. Perez comes into Miami 6 points behind Verstappen in the driver standings and 27 points clear of Fernando Alonso.

Aston Martin has been the surprise team of the 2023 season. After finished with just 55 points last season (tied with Alfa Romeo) the team sits second in the constructers standings, 11 points clear of Mercedes. Fernando Alonso has carried the team this year finishing ahead of teammate Lance Stroll in all four races this season. Outside of the Red Bull cars, Fernando Alonso has the shortest odds of winning at +1400 via covers.com.

The once giants of the sport have fallen behind Red bull by a wide margin, and probably Aston Martin and Ferrari if we're being honest. We were told about the upgrades heading into Azerbaijan. Those didn't show themselves on that track. Lewis Hamilton finished a disappointing 6th last weekend while teammate George Russell finished 8th. Which was impressive considering he didn't get out of Q2.

I really don't get it with this team. They should be battling with Red Bull for top car on the grid, but they just can't put it together on race day. Charles Leclerc sits sixth is the driver standings right now and is actually trailing teammate Carlos Sainz. The car is fast, but reliability issues have once again snake bit the team in 2023, just like 2022.

Realistically, none of these cars have a chance at winning barring a massive wreck at the front of the field. But there are still story lines with the back half of the field. McLaren has been the most consistent team in the back half of the field. But what about Alpine? This is a team we all keep waiting to take the next step and start finishing in the points every weekend. Haas started with a promising start to the season, but had a poor showing last weekend.  It is nice to look at the standings and see every team with at least a point on the board. In fact only 2 drivers are yet to finish in the points this season. They're both rookies which should not surprise anyone; Logan Sargent and Nyck De Vries.