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

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. 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. Antonelli got a much better start than the sprint but was the man on the outside as he, Leclerc, and Verstappen went into the first corner, and he ran wide and resumed third. The two McLarens were next, then Russell and Hamilton’s Ferrari, which was damaged in a tussle with Franco Colapinto’s Alpine. The midfield team has also made clear progress and may well trouble the top four a lot more this year. Lap six was eventful. Hadjar misjudged the apex at turn 13 and destroyed his front left suspension. At about the same time, the other Alpine of Pierre Gasly diced with the Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson before they made contact, rolling Gasly and depositing him partially on the tire barrier at turn 17. Norris got past Antonelli before the safety car came out, then a lap later took the lead from Leclerc. Antonelli also passed the Ferrari quickly, and by lap 22, Leclerc’s race was looking pretty mediocre, stuck behind Russell after both had made relatively early pit stops for the mandatory tire change. Verstappen was on a different trajectory. After falling to ninth with his spin, he stopped for hard tires and was maneuvering his way back up the running order. As the leaders stopped, they rejoined on track just behind his Red Bull, Antonelli beating Norris to be the one in the middle. As Piastri made his stop, he relinquished the lead to Verstappen, but the Dutch driver was on tires that were 21 laps older than Antonelli’s new rubber, and by halfway around the lap, the Mercedes was through into first with Norris’ McLaren following. Piastri wasn’t done; he caught Leclerc with a lap to go, then passed him on the final lap for third place. It went downhill from there for the Ferrari man, who spun, then biffed the wall and broke his suspension, then earned a penalty that dropped him from sixth to eighth place for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage. Between Leclerc’s travails and Hamilton’s somewhat-damaged, mostly anonymous race, it was a weekend without much glory for Ferrari. Audi didn’t have the best time either; Nico Hulkenberg’s car caught fire on the way to the sprint grid, and Gabriel Bortoleto was disqualified from the sprint after finishing 11th for a technical infringement. Williams went home with smiles, though. It has had a very poor start to 2026, with a car that’s overweight and exhibiting some difficult handling characteristics that saw it mired at the back of the pack if not quite as slow as Cadillac or Aston Martin. But in Miami, the two Williams cars looked far more at home, especially in the race where they both finished in the points. Even Cadillac and Aston Martin will probably be content with their performances on Sunday; both teams got both cars to the flag, and Perez managed to split the two Astons.