BWT Alpine F1 Team ran a routine Friday Practice programme today ahead of this weekend's Miami Grand Prix at the impressive Hard Rock Stadium.
Pierre Gasly ended the day sixth in Free Practice 1 and eleventh in Free Practice 2, with Esteban Ocon tenth in the first session and ninth in the second on a smooth opening day to the Miami weekend.

Esteban Ocon: "Firstly, it's great to be back driving in this iconic city and it's always a pleasure racing in the United States. For us, it was a smooth day on track overall and it was good to have two full sessions to work on the set-up of the car. Today was a day of data gathering, and really looking into how the track and surface feel, and how the tyres behave. I have to say the organisers did a great job as the tarmac is much better than last year. We still have one more Practice session and some work to do to fine-tune our car before Qualifying. I am definitely looking forward to seeing what we can do and hopefully we can be in the mix for a strong result."

Pierre Gasly: "It was important for us to have a clean and uneventful day in the car and I think we're in a decent position ahead of the rest of the weekend. We have a much better read on the car than we did this time last week and the aim now is to push on and execute an even better Saturday. We tried a couple of things on set-up, some worked, others not so much, but I have no real complaints at this stage and I feel we can find even more in the car in Practice tomorrow ahead of Qualifying. It's really good to be back here in Miami at this impressive venue. Let's see what we can do tomorrow where, of course, the minimum aim has to be reaching Q3."

Pat Fry, Chief Technical Officer: "It's been a productive Friday for the team today here in Miami and it was good to have two smooth Practice sessions where we've been able to run to our programme and tick things off our list. We have another good read on the upgrades from last week, which are in line with our expectations and performing well on the car. The field looks extremely tight with a couple of tenths of a second the difference between a handful of positions, especially in and around the top ten. Everything will need to click and go right if we are to be at the upper end of that mix. As ever, we'll run through the data, see which set-up direction works and aim to come back tomorrow with some further improvements."

Check out our Friday gallery from Miami here.