F1 Miami Grand Prix: What are the strategy options?

MIAMI, Florida — Welcome to race day at the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.

A fascinating afternoon awaits fans both here in Miami and around the world. Max Verstappen found the “bits” he needed to capture pole position ahead of Lando Norris, meaning we could see another battle royale into Turn 1.

Lurking behind those two are the duo of Kimi Antonelli and Oscar Piastri, who had a scrap of their own into Turn 1 in yesterday’s F1 Sprint race.

But as always in F1, tires may tell the story. What are the possible tire strategies for the 2025 Miami Grand Prix? Let’s dive in.

What happened at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix?

Last season’s race was for the most part a one-stop affair. The majority of the field started on the medium compound, which last year was the C3, before switching to the C2 hard compound.

Tire wear was at a low a year ago, which created a big window for pit stops. Sergio Pérez was the first of the lead drivers to make his stop, coming into the pits on Lap 17. Norris, however, was still on the track on Lap 29 on his set of C3 tires, and he took advantage of a Safety Car to make a pit stop under those conditions and emerge as the race leader on a fresh set of hard tires.

Only three drivers used the C4 tire a year ago, which was the soft compound. But as we will see in a moment, with Pirelli going a step softer this year, that is the medium compound for today’s race.

What are the strategy options for 2025?

This year Pirelli has opted to go a step softer with the tires, with the C3 as the hard, the C4 as the medium, and the C5 as the soft.

But with the tires proving to be more durable this year, the question of tire degradation is still a matter of open debate. According to Pirelli, based on the data available from Miami the one-stop still looks to be the fastest strategy.

“If the race is run in the dry, the small amount of data gathered yesterday and today, with just one free practice session and the Sprint run almost entirely in the wet, only serves to consolidate the strategy forecasts from before the weekend. Despite the move to a trio of compounds one step softer than in 2024, the one-stop is on paper, the quickest, with Medium and Hard as the obvious choices,” said Mario Isola, Pirelli’s Director of Motorsport, after qualifying on Saturday.

To that point Pirelli favors the medium-hard strategy, stopping anywhere from Lap 19 to Lap 25. But teams could also opt for a hard-medium approach, staying on the track a little longer and making the switch around Lap 32 to Lap 38:

Still, there are some off-set strategies teams could opt for, such as starting on a set of the C5 soft tires to try and pick up some positions on the track, and then pitting around Lap 8 to Lap 14 to make a switch. That might require a two-stop, soft-hard-hard approach.

As we will see in a moment, every team save for Visa Cash App Racing Bulls has saved two sets of hard tires. This could be insurance in the case of a Safety Car, but it could also give those teams an off-set option.

What tires does every driver have available?

Here are the tires each driver has available for the 2025 Miami Grand Prix:

As noted above, every team except for VCARB has two sets of hard tires available. Most have two fresh sets of C3 tires, while Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll have one fresh set, and one scrubbed set.

Only a handful of drivers — Lewis Hamilton, Liam Lawson, Alonso, Stroll, Nico Hülkenberg, Pierre Gasly, and Oliver Bearman — have fresh sets of soft tires available.

What about the weather?

Well, here is the proverbial X-Factor.

As we saw yesterday, conditions at the Miami Grand Prix can be rather tricky in wet weather. While the rain we saw ahead of the F1 Sprint race eased up by the time the lights went out, the conditions — and as the drivers explained the spray from the weather tires expelling water behind them — reduced visibility to near-zero.

But even as most of the track dried out certain portions, such as the chicane through Turns 11 through 16, were still seeing pools of water.

That might mean if we see rain today, and current forecasts are calling for thunderstorms around race time, drivers might need to hold on for an extended stint on the intermediate compound. Yet, as we saw in the F1 Sprint race, the right front intermediate tire tends to wear quickly in drying track conditions.

“The track was drying but the lap-times were not improving because high wear on the front right was generating understeer,” added Isola.

“This happened after 10-12 laps in the Sprint, which is an important indicator for the race: if we have a drying track with a chance of more rain, they’ve got to look for water [wetter patches on track]. If they can’t, then the inter will wear too quickly, and they’ll have to consider another pit-stop.”

Just one more element to consider in today’s race.