Five weeks of forced downtime. Races cancelled in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia due to the war in Iran. A broken calendar that, unintentionally, handed Formula 1 something it rarely gets: time. And every team in the paddock is using every hour of that window to arrive in Miami loaded. The Florida Grand Prix, on the first weekend of May, will not be the fourth race of the year — it will be, in the words of Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur, the start of a new championship.

The forced pause accelerated something already in motion. Most frontrunning teams had reserved their first major upgrade packages for Miami from the very beginning of the season, regardless of what happened in the Middle East. The cancellation of both April races simply gave them more development time than originally planned — and everyone is using it. “Everyone will bring updates to Miami, they’ll have time to work on the software, and that’s why I said a new championship will begin,” Vasseur told Sky Italy in Japan. “We won’t be the only ones working between Japan and Miami, so we need to pay attention. But it’s true that we have a month available, and that’s not usual in Formula 1. All the teams on the grid are pushing like crazy to improve.”

Ferrari arrives in Miami with one of the most anticipated packages on the grid. The Maranello outfit has already shown glimpses of an innovative aerodynamic approach across the first three races — including its widely discussed rotating rear wing — and is expected to take a significant step forward in Florida. Vasseur’s objective is clear: maintain pressure on Mercedes in the standings as the development rate accelerates. “The rate of development in the championship will be very high, so we’ll need to keep pushing hard over these months.”

Mercedes, leading the championship with Kimi Antonelli at the front, does not arrive in Miami in cruise control. Toto Wolff acknowledged at Suzuka that what looked like a commanding advantage in the first two races no longer holds. “What looked like a home run in the first two races for us isn’t the case, and we’ve always warned that would happen.” For the Silver Arrows team principal, Miami is also a restart: “How are the upgrades going to work that people are bringing? How have we optimised all the other systems? It’s going to be exciting.”

McLaren, the reigning constructors’ champion, had Miami circled on its development calendar long before the season began. The team has history with that circuit — it was the turning point of their 2023 comeback — but team principal Andrea Stella is clear-eyed about the difference this time: every direct rival is arriving with upgrades too. “There’s good stuff happening in development, so I would expect the car will be significantly improved in the coming races, especially starting from Miami. But obviously we will have to see what the rate of development is of the other teams, because all cars will be improved.”

The team that needs that step the most is Red Bull. The RB22 arrived in Japan with deep-rooted setup and grip issues the team has yet to fully resolve. Team principal Laurent Mekies was measured in his assessment of what Miami can realistically deliver: “Does it mean you come to Miami and you have solved everything as a miracle? No. But am I confident that the team will get to the bottom of that understanding and start bringing improvements already in Miami? I think that’s what you will see.” Mekies is not promising miracles — he is promising direction. For Red Bull right now, that is already something.

Miami starts in May. But the race already began.

Thumbnail credits: © Yaroslav Sabitov | Dreamstime.com