Nervous faces in the garages.

Jolyon Palmer
Former Renault driver on BBC Radio 5 Live

Perez was on pole because of a good lap yesterday but more because Verstappen made a mistake at a crucial time. He's given himself an eight-place buffer to his team mate.

Is Verstappen the biggest threat to Perez? Of course he is.

Although Alonso will challenge, they just surely don't have the pace to make it stick through the race.

We're almost racing in the Sunshine State. First seven drivers are all starting on the medium compounds.

While it was still another Red Bull one-two finish in Azerbaijan, Sergio Perez's near perfect weekend means the top of the drivers' championship has now been cut down to just six points between himself and Red Bull buddy Max Verstappen.

Charles Leclerc's second in the sprint and third in the main race handed the Ferrari driver 22 points in total in Baku, lifting him up the order from joint 10th with Haas' Nico Hulkenberg to level on points with George Russell.

What will the top of the leaderboard look like by the end of play in Miami?

Image source, BBC Sport/Getty

With two drivers scoring points in both the sprint event and the full grand prix in Baku, Red Bull are pulling away from the rest of the constructors at the top of the standings with a 93-point lead over Aston Martin in second place.

Mercedes are still sitting in third, Ferrari are in fourth spot and McLaren stay in fifth place thanks to Lando Norris bringing home two points for the team.

Image source, BBC Sport/Getty

Image source, Getty Images

Who could forget those American football helmets handed out to the top three at last year's Miami Grand Prix? And the police escort to the podium?

Max Verstappen survived a late-race assault from Charles Leclerc to win the debut event in Florida 12 months ago.

The Dutchman was cruising to an easy win after passing Leclerc early on but a late safety car brought them together for a restart with 10 laps to go.

Leclerc's Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz finished in third place.

BBC Sport's Ritchie Blackman looks at whether Sergio Perez can rival Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen in the drivers' championship.

Image source, Pirelli Motorsport

The advice from Pirelli today is to start on the medium tyres and aim for a one-stop strategy, switching to the hard C2 compounds around lap 13 to 20.

Alternatively, you could opt for a two-stopper consisting of a medium-hard-medium run plan.

Or, there is an option of throwing the soft tyres on late in the game after using the mediums early in the grand prix and then changing to the hards up until laps 41 to 46.

Valtteri Bottas, talking to Sky Sports, on the wind and also the trickier elements of the circuit: "It's already a tricky track not to make mistakes on this tarmac, but also with the wind which is gusting.

"You don't want to go off line. It's pretty bad. I think some of the braking zones will have a bit more cleaning eventually."

Those introductions were mad. Hats off to the orchestra and composer Will.i.Am but you would've either loved that or absolutely hated it.

The Star-Spangled Banner then gets a rapturous applause from the Miami crowd.

Image source, Getty Images

The FIA has made a few tweaks to the DRS zones for the Miami Grand Prix this weekend, reducing the first two of three zones by 75 metres, while the final DRS boost onto the start-finish straight remains untouched.

The DRS reduction down the main straight in Azerbaijan was not met with positive reviews from drivers or team bosses, with many feeling the lack of overtaking opportunities resulted in a "boring" race.

Nulla Pax: Great starting grid at a poor race track. Literally anything could happen.

Saturday was rubbish for Lewis Hamilton but the Mercedes driver hasn't let that put him off from turning up at the paddock today in this intergalactic-style jumpsuit.

"He's royalty!" cries LL Cool J on the microphone as Hamilton makes his entrance.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Formula 1 is back at the Hard Rock Stadium - home of the NFL's Miami Dolphins and host of six Super Bowls and countless other major sporting and musical events.

The 5.41km layout, which has been resurfaced for this year's event, features 19 corners, three straights and three DRS zones, with part of the design has taking inspiration from Mexico City's famous Foro Sol section.

The inaugural winner of the Miami Grand Prix in 2022, Max Verstappen, holds the lap record with a time of 1:31.361.

Jolyon Palmer
Former Renault driver on BBC Radio 5 Live

Verstappen's the man, He's surely got to come through in the Red Bull. I think the aim for Max is to win this grand prix. The Red Bull is so fast in a straight line.

The overtaking will be harder than last year.

Leclerc in the Ferrari - I wonder how his confidence is today.

Mercedes were really bad this weekend. Hamilton was not particularly happy with his car or his team yesterday. Their top speed is not good.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Miami

Image source, Getty Images

With Charles Leclerc and particularly Max Verstappen out of position, and Fernando Alonso alongside Sergio Perez on the front row, the auguries for an interesting race are good. It’s looking like a one-stop strategy, most likely starting on the medium tyre and switching to the hard. But there are a lot of unknowns. Both medium and soft tyres have grained in every practice session. And there is uncertainty about the life of the hard. Could it go the whole way, or will it only do 15 or so laps short of a race distance?

That unknown will push people to run the medium longer in the first stint. But run it too long and there is the risk of being under-cut - a rival stopping first and overtaking by dint of the time gained on new tyres while you are out on old. Drivers will have to be careful not to lock their brakes, as this would have a negative effect on stint lengths, but the strong, gusty wind on Sunday will make that harder. As will the fact that it is a tail-wind into all the big braking zones except Turn One.

Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell and McLaren’s Lando Norris are the only drivers to have two new sets of hards available. But this is likely to be a feature only if the hard degrades early.

The lack of grip off line will make overtaking harder than it would otherwise be, as will the fact the DRS overtaking zones have been shortened compared to last year. Being in DRS gives a 0.6-second lap-time advantage. A stop takes about 20 seconds under green-flag conditions.

"The bad boy turned good" is Kevin Magnussen's introduction.

Jackie Stewart has legged it over to Roger Federer to ask the 20-time Grand Slam winner to come and talk to Martin Brundle. Jackie is practically dragging Roger across the grid but give him his due, Martin gets to chat to the Swiss player thanks to the three-time F1 champ.

Oooh, here is the driver presentation...

Image source, Getty Images

Alpine have made a poor start to the 2023 season with their new driver line-up of French duo Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, with the pair crashing out in the chaos of Melbourne and Gasly's car catching fire in Azerbaijan. But the atmosphere was lifted on Saturday thanks to both drivers qualifying in the top eight.

"After Baku that was clearly needed," said Gasly, who starts P5. "To king of bounce back after a tough race last weekend. I'm really pleased for the boys, I think we made a step forward."

For Ocon in P8, he felt his Alpine "was really quick" the whole session.

"I could feel the pace of the car; we are not there randomly," he said. "It was on pure merit and I was extremely happy with everything and how it was going."

The Frenchman did add he was "slightly ****** off" because he felt P5 was a possibility in the final runs in Q3.

There is going to be a special driver presentation before the national anthem in Miami, with rapper and actor LL Cool J introducing the grid in groups of four.