Rain clouds loom over the Miami GP, prompting organisers to pull the Sunday start from 4 pm to 1 pm. The shift adds urgency to an already shaky wet‑weather preparation, as this season’s larger tyres have left teams short on comparable rain data. With intermediate blankets raised from 60 °C to 70 °C, the paddock hopes a drizzle will finally test the new compounds.

During the January shakedown in Barcelona only Red Bull and Ferrari ran on a wet track, reporting sluggish warm‑up on the narrowed intermediates. Pirelli later recreated rain at Fiorano in April, bumping blanket heat to 70 °C after drivers flagged front‑axle cooling problems at 60 °C. A Japanese post‑race test was soaked, delivering further intermediate and wet data but no dry runs.

A wet Sunday would give F1 its first real‑world gauge of how the slimmer tyres behave under real race pressure, informing setup, pressures and future blanket targets. Teams would finally see whether the 70 °C boost eliminates the snowball cooling effect that has haunted practice sessions. In short, rain in Miami could supply the significant missing performance baseline the sport desperately needs.