F1 in Miami: That’s what it looks like when an upgrade works

F1 迈阿密大奖赛：这就是升级奏效的样子

After an unanticipated five-week break in the season, Formula One resumed action this past weekend in Miami. Held at a temporary circuit around Hard Rock Stadium, the event is emblematic of the Liberty era of F1: a turbocharged marketing extravaganza crammed full of hospitality suites with ticket prices as high as $95,000. It might be miles from the sea—the original plans to race across a bridge over Biscayne Bay did not survive contact with locals—but the sport is doing its best to make this a modern Monaco, playing up the host city’s glamorous reputation and pastel color palette.

在经历了意料之外的五周赛季间歇期后，一级方程式赛车（F1）上周末在迈阿密重燃战火。这场比赛在硬石体育场（Hard Rock Stadium）周围的临时赛道上举行，是 F1“自由媒体时代”（Liberty era）的标志性缩影：一场充满商业营销色彩的盛会，挤满了豪华接待套房，门票价格高达 9.5 万美元。虽然这里距离大海还有一段距离——最初计划在比斯坎湾（Biscayne Bay）大桥上比赛的方案因当地居民的反对而搁浅——但这项运动正竭尽全力将其打造为现代版的摩纳哥，极力渲染这座主办城市迷人的声誉和柔和的色彩基调。

As we learned a couple of weeks ago, there have been tweaks to the amount of energy that the cars’ new hybrid power units can regenerate and deploy via the electric motor that contributes almost half of the car’s power output. The first three races of this season were frenetic, but they alarmed many longtime fans, as the cars are now too energy-limited to be driven flat-out during qualifying; that energy limitation also led to cars swapping positions multiple times, derisively dubbed “yo-yo” racing by critics. The new limits on harvesting energy from the V6 to charge the battery on the move should reduce the potential for huge speed differentials like the one that caused Oliver Bearman’s crash in Japan, and energy management was (thankfully) not much of a topic this weekend. Miami’s layout definitely helps there, with plenty of braking zones to help regenerate much of the now-allowed 7 MJ each lap.

正如我们几周前所了解到的，赛车新混合动力单元的能量回收和释放量进行了调整，这些能量通过贡献了赛车近一半动力输出的电动机进行运作。本赛季的前三场比赛节奏狂乱，但令许多老车迷感到担忧，因为赛车现在受限于能量储备，无法在排位赛中全速冲刺；这种能量限制还导致赛车频繁交换位置，被批评者嘲讽为“溜溜球”式比赛。针对 V6 发动机行驶中充电能量回收的新限制，应该能减少像日本站导致奥利弗·贝尔曼（Oliver Bearman）撞车那样的巨大速度差。值得庆幸的是，本周末能量管理并没有成为主要话题。迈阿密的赛道布局对此大有裨益，大量的制动区有助于回收每圈允许的 7 兆焦耳（MJ）能量。

Correlation is causation

相关性即因果

In a more conventional season, you might not bring any upgrades to Miami. It’s one of F1’s six sprint weekends, with just a single hour’s practice session on Friday morning; the other two are replaced by a shortened qualifying session on Friday afternoon, then a (roughly) half-hour sprint race on Saturday morning, before normal qualifying later that day and the proper race on Sunday. Mindful that it had imposed new rules for this round, the sport’s organizers increased practice time to 90 minutes on Friday.

在常规赛季中，车队可能不会在迈阿密站带来任何升级。这是 F1 六个冲刺赛周末之一，周五上午仅有一小时的练习赛；其余时间被周五下午缩短的排位赛、周六上午约半小时的冲刺赛，以及当天晚些时候的常规排位赛和周日的正赛所取代。考虑到本站实施了新规则，赛事组织者将周五的练习时间延长到了 90 分钟。

Every team, except the troubled Aston Martin, brought an upgrade package to Florida. Coming out of the blocks strong as Mercedes did this year is all well and good, but the 2009 season showed us what happens when a team with a huge advantage at the start fails to develop its car: Everyone else catches up. Well, that’s assuming those upgrade packages work. A new wing or wishbone or whatever design might look like an improvement when you simulate it in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) or a wind tunnel, but if those aren’t well-correlated with the full-size car on track, that work was for naught. Many’s a time a team has brought what it hoped was a step forward only to find out it’s now even less competitive—just ask the closest tifosi.

除了陷入困境的阿斯顿·马丁车队外，每支车队都为佛罗里达站带来了升级套件。像梅赛德斯今年这样开局强势固然很好，但 2009 赛季告诉我们，当一支在起步阶段拥有巨大优势的车队无法持续研发赛车时会发生什么：其他人都会追上来。当然，前提是这些升级套件确实有效。新的尾翼、悬挂叉臂或其他任何设计在计算流体力学（CFD）或风洞模拟中看起来可能是一种改进，但如果它们与赛道上的全尺寸赛车相关性不佳，那么这些工作就白费了。车队满怀希望地带来升级，结果却发现赛车竞争力反而下降的情况屡见不鲜——问问那些最忠实的法拉利车迷（tifosi）就知道了。

Over the past few years, McLaren has nailed that correlation problem, causing all of its upgrade packages to add performance. What’s more, that ability has now spanned across three different sets of technical regulations. It caught up to the front of the pack in 2021 after years in the wilderness, then was the only team to overhaul Red Bull in the ground-effect era. Now it looks set to do that again. Ferrari and Red Bull have both also taken a step forward. The Mercedes might have looked awfully dominant in Australia, China, and Japan, but as of now, the season looks like a four-way fight.

在过去几年里，迈凯伦成功解决了相关性问题，使其所有的升级套件都能切实提升性能。更重要的是，这种能力已经跨越了三套不同的技术规则。在经历了多年的沉寂后，他们在 2021 年追赶到了第一梯队，随后成为地面效应时代唯一一支超越红牛的车队。现在，他们看起来准备再次做到这一点。法拉利和红牛也都向前迈进了一步。梅赛德斯在澳大利亚、中国和日本站看起来确实极具统治力，但就目前而言，本赛季看起来更像是一场四方混战。

The flag drops

挥旗开赛

The changes to energy harvesting in qualifying looked successful, at least in Miami. Cars weren’t losing speed precipitously three-quarters of the way down the straight, and I doubt anyone could tell they were a second and a bit slower than last year’s machines in qualifying trim. Lando Norris took pole in sprint qualifying, a couple of tenths of a second faster than McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri. Between 19-year-old Kimi Antonelli and teammate George Russell, Antonelli was able to make his Mercedes do things that his more experienced teammate could not. Charles Leclerc was similarly more at home in his Ferrari than Lewis Hamilton was around the Hard Rock Stadium, but the gap between teammates was nothing like that separating Max Verstappen’s Red Bull from that of Isack Hadjar.

排位赛能量回收的调整看起来很成功，至少在迈阿密是这样。赛车在直道四分之三处没有出现速度骤降，我怀疑没人能看出它们在排位赛状态下比去年的赛车慢了一秒多。兰多·诺里斯（Lando Norris）在冲刺排位赛中夺得杆位，比迈凯伦队友奥斯卡·皮亚斯特里（Oscar Piastri）快了十分之二秒。在 19 岁的基米·安东内利（Kimi Antonelli）和队友乔治·拉塞尔（George Russell）之间，安东内利能让他的梅赛德斯赛车做出他那位经验更丰富的队友无法做到的动作。查尔斯·勒克莱尔（Charles Leclerc）在硬石体育场驾驶法拉利赛车的感觉也比刘易斯·汉密尔顿（Lewis Hamilton）更得心应手，但队友之间的差距远不及马克斯·维斯塔潘（Max Verstappen）的红牛与伊萨克·哈贾尔（Isack Hadjar）之间的差距。

Verstappen, the four-time champion, has been vocal about his dislike of the new cars and the new racing style, and he has increasingly signaled that he could walk away from F1 to pursue other racing interests. This weekend, the Red Bull upgrade package seems more to his liking, and the gap to Hadjar was more than a second in practice. Both Mercedes made atrocious getaways at the start of the sprint, and the two McLarens drove off to an uneventful 1–2 finish that seemed reminiscent of 2025. Leclerc demonstrated the Ferrari’s superior performance off the line and held third until the end.

四届冠军维斯塔潘一直直言不讳地表达对新赛车和新比赛风格的不满，并越来越多地暗示他可能会离开 F1 去追求其他赛车兴趣。本周末，红牛的升级套件似乎更合他的胃口，在练习赛中他与哈贾尔的差距超过了一秒。两辆梅赛德斯在冲刺赛起步时表现糟糕，两辆迈凯伦赛车轻松以 1-2 名完赛，这一幕让人回想起 2025 年。勒克莱尔展示了法拉利出色的起步性能，并保持第三名直到终点。

Fears of a wet race on Sunday did not materialize, although the potential for weather chaos saw the race start moved forward by three hours. Antonelli had secured the pole on Saturday afternoon, his third in a row. Lining up next to him? Verstappen’s Red Bull. Leclerc was third, then Norris, Russell, Hamilton, and Piastri filled out rows three and four. When Ferrari designed its 2026 power unit, it went for a small turbocharger in large part because it knew engines with larger turbos, and therefore more lag, would…

周日雨战的担忧并未成真，尽管由于天气可能带来的混乱，正赛时间提前了三个小时。安东内利在周六下午锁定了杆位，这是他连续第三次夺杆。排在他旁边的是谁？维斯塔潘的红牛。勒克莱尔排在第三，随后诺里斯、拉塞尔、汉密尔顿和皮亚斯特里占据了第三和第四排。当法拉利设计其 2026 年动力单元时，他们选择了小型涡轮增压器，很大程度上是因为他们知道，配备更大涡轮增压器（因此会有更多迟滞）的发动机将会……