The agenda for the only practice session in Miami was to collect as much data as possible in the hour before the competition session began.
Another sprint week posed a huge challenge for all teams as teams and drivers had little time to find a strong set-up.
Max Verstappen took pole position in the sprint race, with Charles Leclerc following closely behind the reigning world champion.
However, while the Dutchman was the winner throughout the entire lap, the long run times of FP1 told a slightly different story.
Red Bull's trend in recent years has been strong race pace, which remains consistent (apart from the odd blip) across most racetracks.
However, on long runs, Verstappen was noticeably slower than some of his rivals, especially McLaren's Lando Norris.
McLaren has made a slew of upgrades to its MCL38 ahead of the weekend in a bid to close the gap to Red Bull.
However, it is likely that Verstappen had some limitations, such as carrying more fuel than his rivals, which resulted in a slower time.
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Looking at the lap times during the long practice runs, it's notable that Norris, teammate Piastri, and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz were faster than Verstappen.
Only the Dutchman was on medium tyres, the other three on hard compounds.
This difference in tire lap times indicates that Norris, Sainz and Piastri were probably running on relatively little fuel, while Verstappen was able to continue laps at the same pace and by the end of the 40 minute It was 4 speed. Longer run than the first.
Although the gap looks quite large, Verstappen and Red Bull seem to be keeping their cards close to their chest.
Verstappen showed in sprint qualifying that he's the man to beat – or was Norris' pace in sprint qualifying good enough to take him without a hitch?
The Red Bull man is aiming to promote his pole position in sprint races to victory and no doubt wants to do the same at Grand Prix.
Only then will we really know whether Red Bull will be chosen in this field again or whether a rival team has a chance to pull off an upset.