Kimi Antonelli took pole and the win in Miami, McLaren answered a difficult start to the season with a Sprint victory and a strong Sunday, and Max Verstappen produced Red Bull’s best qualifying lap of the year, even if the race result didn’t quite match it.
Saturday: Norris Strikes First
McLaren arrived under pressure, sitting third in the constructors’ standings with an air of a team that knew it wasn’t where it should be. The Sprint was the first sign of a response. Lando Norris took the win, with Oscar Piastri 3.766 seconds back in second and Charles Leclerc completing the podium a further 2.5 seconds adrift. George Russell was best of the rest in fourth, with Max Verstappen fifth for Red Bull. Kimi Antonelli, who would dominate the rest of the weekend, could only manage sixth in the Sprint, over 13 seconds off Norris’s pace. Pierre Gasly picked up the final point in eighth for Alpine.
Qualifying: Antonelli Grabs Pole, Verstappen Produces a Season-Best
If the Sprint belonged to McLaren, qualifying belonged to Mercedes, and specifically to Antonelli. A best Q3 lap of 1:27.798 was enough for pole, but the real story was who lined up next to him: Max Verstappen, just 0.166 seconds back in P2. It’s Red Bull’s strongest qualifying result of a season that has otherwise been defined by a struggling car and a driver stuck fighting the midfield.
Leclerc split the front two rows in third, with Norris only fourth despite his Sprint win, and Russell fifth. Hamilton took sixth, and Piastri, the Sprint runner-up, could only manage seventh, eliminated from front-row contention by a Q3 lap over seven tenths off pole. Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly rounded out the top nine, with Nico Hülkenberg completing Q3 in tenth.
Sunday: Pole to Flag for Antonelli, a Mixed Day for Ferrari
Antonelli converted pole into a lights-to-flag victory, taking his fourth win of the season. Norris made the most of a strong car, moving from fourth on the grid to second at the flag and picking up the race’s fastest lap along the way, a genuinely complete weekend for McLaren after Saturday’s Sprint win. Piastri did the same from further back, climbing from seventh to third.
Russell brought his Mercedes home fourth from fifth on the grid, a quietly solid recovery of ground lost in qualifying. Verstappen’s race didn’t match his Saturday lap: fifth at the flag from second on the grid, losing three positions over the race distance, but still Red Bull’s best result of what has otherwise been a season to forget. Hamilton held station in sixth.
The bigger story was Leclerc. Third on the grid, he fell to eighth by the finish, a five-place drop that will sting more than most results this season given how strong his qualifying lap had looked. Colapinto converted eighth on the grid into seventh for Alpine, while Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon completed a Williams double points finish in ninth and tenth, both having started outside the top ten.
Isack Hadjar was the day’s first retirement, ending his race early for Red Bull’s junior team, and a Safety Car was deployed at some point during proceedings, the kind of neutralisation that tends to compress the field and hand strategists a headache. RB claimed the fastest pitstop of the afternoon, a rare highlight on a day when their driver didn’t see the chequered flag.
The Points Table Tells the Story
Antonelli’s win extends his championship lead to 100 points, up from 75 heading into the weekend, with Russell’s fourth place keeping him second on 80. Leclerc’s difficult Sunday still nets him fourth-place points, moving him to 59 and holding third overall.
The more interesting movement is just below that. Norris’s Sprint and Grand Prix double haul takes him to 51 points and up to fourth in the standings, level on points with Hamilton but ahead on the tiebreak, a swap that will sting for Ferrari given Hamilton hasn’t actually lost pace, Leclerc’s Miami simply cost the team ground. Piastri sits sixth on 43. Verstappen’s fifth-place finish moves him to 26 points and up to seventh, passing two drivers in the standings in a single weekend, modest in isolation but a genuine step for a team that has spent most of 2026 going backwards.
In the constructors’, Mercedes extend their advantage to 180 points, with Ferrari (110) and McLaren (94) unchanged in the order behind them. Further down, Alpine’s points across both sessions move them to 23 and past Haas (static on 18) into fifth, while Williams’s Sainz-Albon double jumps them to 5 points and past Audi (static on 2) into eighth.
The Wider Picture
Mercedes remain exactly what they’ve been all season: the benchmark. Pole, win, and a podium-adjacent fourth for Russell is about as complete a weekend as a team can have.
McLaren needed a response and got the fullest possible version of one: a Sprint win, both cars gaining ground from the grid on Sunday, and a genuine 2-3 finish to show for it. Whether it’s a turning point or a one-off will depend on whether they can repeat it.
Ferrari’s weekend is harder to read. Leclerc’s qualifying lap was genuinely strong, third on the grid, and the race result doesn’t reflect it. Hamilton’s quiet sixth was the more representative drive of the two.
Red Bull will take real encouragement from Verstappen’s qualifying lap even with the race result not quite matching it, and Hadjar’s retirement is a reminder that reliability remains a live concern alongside pure pace.
Alpine and Williams both had quietly good weekends, Colapinto’s points finish and the Williams double both worth more in the constructors’ table than the headlines they’ll generate.
Final Verdict
On the results sheet, Miami looks like more of the same: Antonelli on pole, Antonelli wins, Mercedes extend their lead. But look closer and there’s plenty to take from this one. McLaren arrived under pressure and left with a Sprint win and a genuine 2-3 to show for it. Verstappen produced Red Bull’s best qualifying lap of the season. And Ferrari leave Florida having been quicker than their result, Leclerc’s drop from third on the grid to eighth at the flag the one result of the weekend that will get more attention in the debrief than the headline order suggests.
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