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Sprint race report
Right, I am wrapping up for now, but we will be back for qualifying, in three hours’ time, to see if any lessons from this Miami lunchtime will have been brought to bear for teatime – mojito time? – and qualifying for Sunday’s main event. See you then.
And here is George Russell. “Not much happier, to be honest. I struggle on this track. It’s very low grip – there are a couple of tracks on the calendar, Brazil, Zandvoort. The improvements from McLaren, Ferrari and also Red Bull are a little bit daunting. So that’s the main thing.”
Antonelli addresses his start and its impact: “For once I did everything right with the procedures, so we need to check what happened. The grip was very low … Probably lower than we expected. After that I was really frustrated, I didn’t even drive well, I got track limits, I did a lot of mistakes.”
Toto Wolff now. “We knew that we were a bit out of sync with our updates.” He says Antonelli’s bad start was the team’s fault for the setup. Wolff pays tribute to Zanardi, “one of my heroes as I was coming through as a driver”. “We lost a great racer.”
Andrea Stella now with Ted Kravitz and before addressing his McLaren team’s good day, he addresses the death of his compatriot Alex Zanardi, someone who exemplified “what it means to love life. So this win is for him.”
He adds: “It was important to confirm that the upgrades work, like we have seen yesterday over a single lap. Today it was important to see them in long runs and even hot conditions.”
Right, points scorers in full:
1 Norris 8pts
2 Piastri 7pts +3.766
3 Leclerc 6pts +6.251
4 Russell 5pts +12.951
5 Verstappen 4pts +13.639
6 Antonelli 3pts +13.777
7 Hamilton 2pts +21.665
8 Gasly 1pt +30.525
Here comes the captain of Artemis II, Reid Wiseman, to present Norris’s award … but then a moment of silence for Alex Zanardi. That’s it for the presentations.
Norris forgets “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Cheers for Norris. “It was a good race, nice to be back on the top step.” Praises the upgrades. Hot, sweaty work but a good start to the weekend.
Here’s Piastri. David Coulthard the man with the mic. Piastri “mostly” satisfied. “Everyone else will learn a lot, and so will we.”
Leclerc pleased. Satisfied with being ahead of Mercedes, not happy to trail McLaren.
Winners? Norris and McLaren generally; Leclerc and his engineers. Losers? Piastri won’t be delighted to be one place behind Norris, but Hamilton will be several times more aggrieved to be four places worse off than Leclerc. But for Mercedes this looks like their worst-case scenario, with the other teams catching them and Antonelli’s penalty confirmed.
Oooh. Antonelli could get a five-second penalty for a fourth breach of track limits. That would promote Russell to fourth and Verstappen to sixth.
Kimi Antonelli ahead of George Russell, so is now 10 points clear at the top of the standings. Verstappen sixth, Hamilton seventh and Gasly eighth to complete the standings.
Norris wins!
It’s a McLaren one-two, with Piastri second, Leclerc third.
Verstappen has got close to Russell, but surely too late.
Leclerc is not going to catch Piastri barring a mistake by the Australian.
One lap to go Norris cruising. The title defence no longer looks at all forlorn.
I should mention that the other big doubt is whether Martin Brundle’s voice is going to hold out for tomorrow. He said he sat next to a man with a cough on his flight and that the aircon finished him off. He is growling through the sprint, but does he have race pace without an oil change for his vocal cords?
Of course it’s the top eight, not the top 10, that matter here for points. Barring a safety car, it looks like Norris-Piastri-Leclerc-Antonelli-Russell-Verstappen-Hamilton-Gasly will be scoring, with the boys in bold the only likely movers.
One of the Williams is going to have to have a new nose cone because of that debris. It’s Albon, into the pits.
Lap 13 and the best chance of a battle in the top 10 is Piastri and Leclerc.
Norris almost three seconds clear and putting in a fastest lap. Piastri no longer more than a second clear of Leclerc, who will get a boost as a result.
Safety car possible. A lump believed to be from Bearman came off but Ocon’s Haas knocked the debris off the racing line.
Now Verstappen uses turn 17 to get past Hamilton and this time it’s legal. The Red Bull is quickly pulling clear of the Mercedes, too, at first glance.
AOB: Lindblad out.
Verstappen goes off the track to overtake Hamilton, and has to give the place back.
But Antonelli bites back! This is why the new regulations are seen as appealing, because of all the overtaking.
Russell past Antonelli into turn 17! And holds off his teammate on turn 1.
The real chasm here is between Verstappen in seventh and Pierre Gasly in eighth, above five seconds.
Things could hardly be going better for McLaren and their world champion, Lando Norris. Things not going so well for Antonelli, who has two strikes for exceeding track limits and we’re only on lap seven.
Norris 1.5sec clear, denying Piastri a boost. Leclerc a similar margin back in third. The compression is from fourth place.
Hamilton puts in a fastest lap. The seven-time champion was unhappy his upgrades did not seem to be working as well as Leclerc’s in practice and sprint qualifying; can he make progress in race conditions?
Antonelli gets close to Leclerc, who is on the radio complaining about how dangerous the teenager can be wheel to wheel. The move doesn’t work off for Antonelli and it almost lets Russell in.
Hamilton past Verstappen into sixth.
Antonelli nearly lost out to Russell, but got the place back.
Norris, Piastri, Leclerc into the first corner! Another poor start by Antonelli
Lights out!
Cars weaving to get the heat in the tyres, and now slowly lining up. Lando Norris coming to a halt at the front of the grid.
Formation lap time. The pitwall is on tenterhooks.
The Miami International Autodrome is on Don Shula Drive. If you know your real football but not the US version, then that’s the equivalent of Bill Shankly Street, or Matt Busby Boulevard, with Shula a legendary Miami Dolphins coach.
Button, who has a world title, confident that George Russell will be competitive come main qualifying as the Mercedes driver pursues a championship of his own.
The heat is on in Miami. Drivers kept as cool as they can be by umbrellas as the cars receive their last touches. Jenson Button probably quite happy to not be wearing a race suit.
So what are those regulation tweaks? As Giles Richards, our man in Miami, explained:
The rule changes agreed in response are an adjustment to existing regulations, rather than a sweeping rewrite, focusing on refining the use of electrical energy. To address key driver complaints there were two major adjustments. In qualifying, the limit in recharge over a lap has been decreased from eight megajoules to seven, with the intent of allowing a lap to be run flat out without having to use tactical energy recovery. Similarly, the unpopular process of lift and coast, where drivers come off throttle with a paucity of electrical energy, has been addressed. There has been an increase in the recharge limit from 250kW to 350kW when super clipping, the process of recovering energy when at full throttle. With more energy recovered in so doing, it is expected drivers will no longer have to lift and coast at the end of straights.
At those speeds, F1 will always be dangerous, like any motor sport – today brought the sad news of the death of Zanardi, who lost both his legs in a Cart race in Germany in 2001. For decades the sport worked to make itself safer. Bearman had a lucky escape, and his crash was to avert a potentially disastrous collision with Colapinto. Neither was at fault. Let’s hope the regulation changes avoid a situation where F1’s rule-makers have brought about a calamitous outcome.
Before battle commences, an immaculate minute’s silence in memory of Alex Zanardi, 1956-2026.
Audi had a problem with Hülkenberg’s car they thought they had resolved, but now they will have to work frantically to make qualifying in just over five hours’ time. For everyone else, the sprint race is now a dozen minutes away.
When Donald pressed on and asked about the regulations regardless, his manager tried to intervene via speakerphone, and then:
I turn to Norris and underline the importance of the issue. A young representative of the management team in the room with us steps closer to say: “We’re done with time.”
I ask Norris if he can spare the additional 10 minutes I’d been promised. He looks embarrassed and says: “I’m not the boss.”
Norris is the world champion and his management company work for him and, when I protest this, he says: “That’s fine. I’m happy to answer that question.”
“No,” says the representative in the room.
Norris smiles awkwardly as he again says: “I’m not the boss.”
I ask Norris why even such a mild question can’t be addressed. “No, we’re not answering that,” the man adds.
Even Norris looks exasperated as he turns to him and asks: “Why? Say yes.”
When Norris answered anyway, he said: “Yes [Mercedes] can [be caught] and we’re doing our best to make sure it’ll be us who do that.”
And today Norris is on pole, with only one Mercedes in the top five.
What else has been happening while actual racing has been under its Trumpian suspension? Well, inevitably, people have been talking about the regulations, the aftermath of the Bearman crash, and comments such as those of Max Verstappen, who after the Chinese GP said:
“It’s terrible,” he said. “If someone likes this, then you really don’t know what racing is like. Not fun at all. Playing Mario Kart. This is not racing and I would say the same if I would be winning races because I care about the racing product.”
Yet when Lando Norris had a sit-down with our award-winning interviewer Donald McRae, the world champion’s management people tried to silence him on the subjects everyone was talking about.
A few hours earlier I had been sent a message saying that Norris’s management did not want me to ask about his friendship and rivalry with Max Verstappen and George Russell or about the new F1 regulations. Norris has said before that the changes are dangerous and “we’ve come from the best cars ever made in Formula One, and the nicest to drive, to probably the worst. It sucks.” I push back, saying it is essential to ask Norris a few questions about the regulation shake-up.
And who could possibly disagree?
Ouch. Nico Hülkenberg has flamed out, it seems, and will not make the sprint grid.
Here are those qualifying times in full:
SQ3
1 Lando Norris (GB) McLaren 1:27.869sec
2 Kimi Antonelli (It) Mercedes 1:28.091
3 Oscar Piastri (Aus) McLaren 1:28.108
4 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari 1:28.239
5 Max Verstappen (Neth) Red Bull 1:28.461
6 George Russell (GB) Mercedes 1:28.493
7 Lewis Hamilton (GB) Ferrari 1:28.618
8 Franco Colapinto (Arg) Alpine 1:29.320
9 Isack Hadjar (Fr) Red Bull 1:29.422
10 Pierre Gasly (Fr) Alpine 1:29.474
SQ2
11 Gabriel Bortoleto (Br) Audi 1:29.994
12 Nico Hülkenberg (Ger) Audi 1:30.019
13 Oliver Bearman (GB) Haas F1 1:30.116
14 Carlos Sainz Jr (Sp) Williams 1:30.224
*15 Arvid Lindblad (GB) Racing Bulls 1:30.573
SQ1
16 Liam Lawson (NZ) Racing Bulls 1:31.043
17 Esteban Ocon (Fr) Haas F1 1:31.245
18 Sergio Pérez (Mex) Cadillac 1:31.255
19 Alex Albon (Tha) Williams 1:32.322
20 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Cadillac 1:31.826
21 Fernando Alonso (Sp) Aston Martin 1:41.311
22 Lance Stroll (Can) Aston Martin
Why only five drivers out in SQ2 and seven in SQ1? Alex Albon was initially credited with 14th place and allowed into SQ2, but was spotted by Racing Bulls to have infringed track limits. Liam Lawson dashed back to his RB, but it came too late for him to advance; Albon was relegated from 14th to 19th.
*Arvid Lindblad, meanwhile, starts from the pitlane because of a breach of the parc fermé regulations
Welcome back, Formula One. A lot seems to have changed since you were last with us, and we may be about to get the first meaningful confirmation.
When it was announced that the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GP had been cancelled because of Donald Trump’s war with Iran, there was some wild speculation that the unexpected gap in the season could enable the other teams to narrow the advantage with which Mercedes had started the season. The Silver Arrows, remember, had won all three full races in Australia, China and Japan, as well as the sprint race in China, and had locked out the front row in all four qualifying sessions. George Russell had led things off with wins in Melbourne and the Shanghai sprint, only for some misfortune with qualifying for the main Chinese race and with the safety car at Suzuka to help Kimi Antonelli to victories and the lead, by nine points, in the drivers’ championship.
Five weeks after F1 said sayonara to Suzuka, today’s Miami sprint race starts with Lando Norris on pole for McLaren, Antonelli on second only because of a last-gasp surge and Russell down in sixth. Oscar Piastri was third fastest qualifier in the second McLaren but, with Charles Leclerc in fourth for Ferrari and Max Verstappen fifth for Red Bull, four different marques have made the top five. Lewis Hamilton rounds out the top seven in the second Ferrari.
So the numerous upgrades brought to Florida seem to have had an effect, and it’s not just the cars that have had an upgrade. Oscar Bearman’s high-speed crash to avoid the decelerating Franco Colapinto – a state of affairs brought about by the complications of harvesting and utilising electrical energy under the hybrid engine rules – brought to a head concerns about the 2026 regulations. The teams and the FIA got together and announced a number of tweaks, of which more anon.
Qualifying is not racing. Sprint races are not full grands prix – a year ago Hamilton won the Chinese sprint but his only other podium in his first season at Ferrari was third in Miami’s short-form race. But at first glance this is a fresh start.
Lights out for the sprint race at what is noon in Miami, 5pm BST and, er, 2am in Piastri’s native Melbourne time zone. Four hours later, it’s qualifying for Sunday’s main event.
