After a disrupted start to 2026, the Miami Grand Prix arrives as the season’s first proper reset point — and the grid looks nothing like anyone expected.
Formula 1 was never going to have a quiet 2026. New regulations, new power units, a reshuffled calendar — and now, a three-race opening act that has left most of the paddock’s pre-season predictions looking rather embarrassing. Miami arrives not just as round four of the championship, but as the moment teams across the field have been pointing to for upgrades, performance recovery, and in some cases, a quietly desperate hope that things will look different on the other side of this break.
Let’s recap what we actually know, and what to look for this weekend.
The State of Play
The headline is simple enough: Mercedes have been the class of the field. After three rounds — Australia, China, and Japan — Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers’ championship on 72 points, with George Russell second on 63. In the constructors’, Mercedes have 135 points, Ferrari are on 90, and McLaren are on 46. Red Bull, for those who blinked and missed it, are sixth on 16.
| Pos | Driver | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 72 |
| 2 | George Russell | Mercedes | 63 |
| 3 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 49 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 41 |
| 5 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 25 |
| 9 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 12 |
The disrupted calendar — Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were cancelled due to the conflict in the region — has compressed the opening phase of the season and given teams a longer runway into Miami than originally planned. That extra time has not gone to waste. Multiple teams are expected to arrive in Florida with significant upgrade packages, making this weekend feel less like a continuation and more like a fresh start.
The Story So Far
Antonelli’s start has been extraordinary. Not just quick — settled. The kind of settled that makes you forget you’re watching a driver in his second season. He has won two of the first three races, become the youngest driver to lead the world championship, and has gone from “exciting prospect” to “genuine title contender” in the time it takes most rookies to figure out tyre management.
Mercedes may have gone from searching for a lead driver to having two legitimate title contenders in the same garage.
Russell, meanwhile, deserves more credit than he’s getting. He is nine points off the championship lead and driving as well as he has at any point in his career. Mercedes haven’t so much given Antonelli the keys to the kingdom — they’ve built a car good enough to make both drivers look unstoppable.
Ferrari have been solid without quite cracking it. Leclerc is third, Hamilton fourth, and the Scuderia look like the most plausible threat to Mercedes if things tighten up. Fred Vasseur has pointed to straight-line performance as a gap that still needs closing. They are close enough to stay interested. Whether they are close enough to actually capitalise is a different question.
And then there is McLaren. The reigning world champions arrive in Miami sitting third in the constructors’, with Norris fifth and Piastri sixth, and an air around the team that suggests they know this is not where they should be. Miami is the race they have been building towards in terms of upgrades. If those updates land, they could rapidly become relevant again. If they don’t — well, they wouldn’t be the first champions to spend a year chasing the previous season’s car.
The Elephant in the Garage
Red Bull. Sixth in the constructors’. Verstappen ninth in the drivers’ standings. For a team that effectively defined the last era of Formula 1, this is jarring. The car is underdeveloped, the team is in transition, and the four-time world champion is currently in a midfield battle that would have seemed like satire eighteen months ago.
There is also the off-track story that refuses to go away: Gianpiero Lambiase — Verstappen’s race engineer since 2016, the man on the other end of the radio for all four of those world championships — is leaving Red Bull for McLaren. Not this season; the move is expected for 2028. But the confirmation of his departure adds another layer to a Red Bull story that has become increasingly complicated. When teams start losing people like that, it tells you something about the direction of travel.
Verstappen gave the move his public blessing — which is very much the kind of thing you say when you want to appear unbothered. Whether he is, is another matter.
Miami as a Reset
The extended break between Japan and Miami — stretched further by the calendar disruption — means this race carries unusual weight. It is not just another round. It is effectively the start of phase two. Teams have had time to develop, analyse, and regroup. And the pressure to show something in Miami is real across most of the paddock.
For Mercedes, the challenge is holding what they have. For Ferrari, it is finding the final tenth that might make them genuinely threatening. For McLaren, it is proving they have not simply handed this season to Mercedes by standing still. And for Red Bull — Miami needs to be the beginning of something, because the current trajectory is not one any team with Verstappen’s talent in the car should be comfortable with.
One thing this season has already demonstrated is that the new rules have done exactly what they were supposed to: shaken things up. The grid looks different. The conversation looks different. And for the first time in a while, there is a genuine question mark over what happens next.
That’s your cue to have an opinion.
Make Your Miami GP Predictions
Who takes pole? Who wins? Who surprises? Lock in your calls before lights out in Florida — make your Miami GP predictions here.
Leave a Reply