Practice-
Colton Herta got his home weekend in Miami off to the perfect start, topping Free Practice for Hitech on a 1:40.320.
Kush Maini followed in second for ART Grand Prix ahead of TRIDENT’s Laurens van Hoepen.
Installation laps were interrupted early on after a spin for Noel Leon at Turn 7 brought out the Virtual Safety Car, with his Campos Racing car needing to be recovered.
The return to green flag conditions didn’t last long as teammate and Championship leader Nikola Tsolov also stopped on track, bringing out the Red Flags.
Running resumed with 25 minutes to go and everyone was eager to get out on track to maximise the remaining time.
Van Hoepen had led the way initially but Alexander Dunne delivered a 1:40.999 to go fastest for Rodin Motorsport with more laps on the board.
Gabriele Mini usurped his Alpine Academy stablemate, going quickest briefly before a flurry of further improvements put van Hoepen back on top with a 1:40.480.
Maini then put ART P1 on the leaderboard with a 1:40.336, 0.144s ahead of the TRIDENT driver in second with a little over 10 minutes remaining.
Herta then moved himself into the top three, just a fraction slower than van Hoepen, but then went quickest of all in the final two minutes on a 1:40.320.
Nobody could find a better effort, and a yellow flag late on for van Hoepen, who went off the track at Turn 8 prevented any more changes in the order.
Qualifying-
ART Grand Prix driver Kush Maini came out on top of a tightly fought Miami Qualifying, taking the Aramco Pole Position Award ahead of Rafael Camara and Martinius Stenshorne.
Maini completed a 1:39.888 with his final lap of the day to beat Camara to the top spot by just 0.033s with Rodin Motorsport’s Martinius Stenshorne in P3.
It was Camara that set the pace early with a 1:40.411, the Invicta Racing driver over a tenth ahead of the Rodin’s Alexander Dunne and Stenshorne in P2 and P3 respectively.
Several drivers were able to push on and improve on their second laps with the supersoft tyres, including Rafael Villagomez, who went from eighth to fourth ahead of Maini in fifth.
While the majority of the field pushed on for a third attempt, many chose to return to the pitlane for a new set of tyres ahead of their final laps of the day.
The drivers returned to the track with just over 11 minutes to go, and once the flying laps begun, the fastest time changed several times.
But it was ultimately Maini that was quickest on a 1:39.888 with the top three, including Camara and Stenshorne covered by just 0.050s.
ART opted to bring Maini back into the pitlane as the rest of the field continued looking to improve their times.
But those runs were curtailed by a yellow flag at Turn 16, with Stenshorne having pulled over to with an issue, leaving Maini on pole ahead of Camara.
Dunne wound up in P4 for Rodin behind Stenshorne, with Gabriele Mini in fifth for MP Motorsport.
Jordan's Track Talk 
Leave a comment