The fifth edition of the Miami Grand Prix gave Formula 1 another chaotic and competitive weekend around Hard Rock Stadium. The race started three hours earlier than planned because of weather concerns, but the change did not reduce the action on track. Kimi Antonelli turned pole position into another victory, even after losing the lead on the opening lap, while early incidents involving Pierre Gasly and Isack Hadjar reshuffled the field. The result was a race that produced clear winners, painful losers, and another strong reminder that Miami has become one of the calendar’s most unpredictable stops.

Antonelli’s win stood out because it was built on control rather than a perfect start. The Mercedes driver again struggled off the line, but he recovered with a strong strategy call and held off pressure from Lando Norris to win. That made it his third straight Grand Prix victory from pole, a rare sequence in Formula 1 history. McLaren also left Miami with real momentum after Norris and Oscar Piastri both finished on the podium, while Williams, Alpine, and even the broader championship picture all found reasons to leave encouraged. On the other side, Ferrari, Red Bull’s second seat, Audi, Aston Martin, and George Russell all had weekends that exposed problems they still need to solve. Miami was not just a race winner’s story. It was also a weekend that showed which teams are building form and which ones are still fighting for answers.

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Winner of the Grand Prix

Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Kimi Antonelli won the Miami Grand Prix and extended his championship lead to 20 points. He started from pole, lost the lead early, and still recovered to finish first by using a strong undercut and clean race management. The Mercedes driver became only the third racer to win his first three Grands Prix consecutively, joining Damon Hill and Mika Hakkinen. That makes his Miami result another major milestone in a sophomore season that is starting to look like a title fight.

Antonelli also showed more maturity under pressure, especially with Lando Norris close behind in the final stint. He said, “I think I feel much more comfortable in the car, much more in control as well.” His pace and composure gave Mercedes another clear win. Even with the start issues, he is proving he can still deliver when the race gets tense.

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Franco Colapinto, Alpine

Franco Colapinto had his best weekend in Formula 1 so far. He qualified eighth, beat teammate Pierre Gasly for the first time this season, and finished seventh after Leclerc’s penalty promoted him one place. For Alpine, that was a strong sign that the upgrades may have worked and that the team can fight in the midfield.

Colapinto drove a clean race and avoided the mistakes that hurt several others around him. He made the most of Alpine’s improved pace and a lighter chassis. It was also a confidence-building result for a driver who has faced criticism since replacing Jack Doohan. The weekend gave Alpine proof that progress is possible when both pace and execution come together.

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Lando Norris, McLaren

Lando Norris left Miami with a win in the Sprint and second place in the Grand Prix. That was a strong return for McLaren, especially because both drivers stayed in the podium fight across the weekend. Norris also pushed Antonelli hard in the closing stages and kept the pressure on until the flag. The result helped McLaren strengthen its position in the championship and close the gap to Ferrari.

Even so, his pace and consistency showed that McLaren’s upgrade package is working. With Oscar Piastri also on the podium, the team left Miami with a clear step forward. It was not the victory Norris wanted, but it was still a major positive.

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Losers of the Miami Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Charles Leclerc had one of the most frustrating Sundays of the race. He started strong, took the lead on lap one, and then lost ground after another slow Ferrari pit stop. He still fought back into third before a final-lap spin damaged his race completely. After the stewards gave him a 20-second penalty, he dropped from sixth to eighth in the final classification.

Leclerc said after the race, per SI, “I’m very disappointed with myself, it’s all on me.” That was a harsh end to a race that had once looked like it could produce a podium. Ferrari’s car showed some pace, but the execution again let the team down. If the team wants to stay in the title picture, it needs cleaner stops and fewer self-inflicted errors.

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Isack Hadjar, Red Bull

Isack Hadjar’s Miami weekend ended in another early exit. He crashed into the wall at Turn 14 and finished the race as a retirement, adding to a difficult start to life alongside Max Verstappen. The Red Bull driver had already been off the pace in qualifying and sprint qualifying, and the race only confirmed how much work he still has to do. His crash also removed any chance of a useful result.

Hadjar admitted the mistake was his own, and the emotion was visible after the incident. His season has brought only four points from six scoring chances, which is not enough for a Red Bull seat under normal standards. The team will be hoping this is a learning weekend rather than a pattern. For now, the gap to Verstappen remains a major concern.

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Aston Martin and Cadillac

Aston Martin and Cadillac both left Miami with more questions than answers. Aston Martin’s best result came from Fernando Alonso in 15th, while Lance Stroll finished 17th in both the sprint and the Grand Prix. Cadillac was more reliable, but both cars still finished outside the points in 16th and 18th. For teams at the back, that is not enough when others are making clear progress.

The future aspect is simple: both teams need more pace before the season slips away from them. Cadillac in particular is still early in its project, but slow progress will not help build momentum. Aston Martin, meanwhile, needs a stronger response after another flat weekend. The data from Miami may help, but the results do not.

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George Russell, Mercedes

George Russell came into the season with championship expectations, but Miami was another weekend where he trailed Antonelli. He qualified and raced well behind his teammate, and the gap was clear throughout the event. Russell did recover to fourth after Leclerc’s late problems, but he was never a real threat to the win. That is a concern because Mercedes expects both cars to challenge at the front.

Russell’s problem is not one race, but a pattern. Antonelli has now beaten him in every Grand Prix qualifying and race since Australia. The Miami result made the gap in the standings even harder to ignore. He will need a stronger response in Canada if he wants to stay close in the title fight.

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Audi, especially Nico Hulkenberg

Audi had a weekend full of reliability problems and no points to show for it. Nico Hulkenberg’s car suffered issues across the weekend, including a first-lap retirement in the Grand Prix after a fire in the sprint and more trouble in qualifying. Gabriel Bortoleto also had a rough weekend, finishing outside the points despite a better Grand Prix result than qualifying suggested. The team is still learning, but the losses are piling up.

Hulkenberg called it a “proper character building weekend,” which fits the overall picture. Audi says it is playing the long game, but long-term plans still need cleaner race weekends. If the team cannot finish sessions and races, it cannot make real progress. Miami showed the work still ahead.

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Conclusion

Miami delivered a race full of movement, mistakes, and momentum shifts. Antonelli proved again that he can handle pressure, McLaren made a clear step forward, and Colapinto gained real confidence. At the same time, Ferrari, Red Bull’s second seat, Audi, and others left with unfinished work. The season is still open, and Canada now offers the next chance to change the story.

F1’s decision to bring the Miami start time forward by three hours ultimately made no difference, as the expected thunderstorms hit the track in the early hours of Sunday morning but then swerved Miami Garden in the afternoon.

As it was, Miami didn’t need the weather gods to serve up an absorbing display. And while it is too early to judge the recent round of energy management tweaks, on the surface Miami provided an entertaining mix of management tactics and driver-centred wheel-to-wheel skills.

Winner: Kimi Antonelli

With every passing week, young Kimi Antonelli is convincing more and more sceptics about whether he is really ready to take the title fight all the way in what is only his sophomore F1 season as a teenager.

There is no doubt that Antonelli is still a raw diamond rather than a polished product. But he has paired his obvious talent and speed with more maturity this year and has not flinched when the pressure is on, as evidenced by the various wheel-to-wheel battles for the lead in Miami.

Antonelli has spent the April break working on some of those chinks in his armour, like his start difficulties, though a lot of the burden is on Mercedes to simplify its procedures too, with Toto Wolff calling the team’s struggles across both cars “unacceptable” as the competition closes in on Mercedes.

But having won his last three grands prix from pole, it’s hard to argue with Antonelli being every bit the title contender that team-mate George Russell is.

It’s too early to be talking about Red Bull’s second seat curse, not after Hadjar’s impressive start to his Red Bull tenure in Melbourne, but on a weekend Max Verstappen was firing on all cylinders Hadjar has found it much harder to keep up with the mercurial Dutchman.

Hadjar was of course desperately unlucky for his car’s floor to just be outside legal parameters in qualifying, relegating him to the back of the grid. But he was a second off Verstappen in sprint qualifying and eight tenths on Saturday, looking much more like a 2019-2025 spec second Red Bull driver that the team is hoping to have solved. His clumsy crash in the early stages of the race was entirely avoidable, too.

Has the improved Red Bull simply allowed Verstappen to push much harder and bring out the best in him, leaving Hadjar in the dust? Or does Hadjar need more time to get on top of the heavily revised RB22? Red Bull will be hoping it is the latter, with team boss Laurent Mekies playing down any concerns.

“I don’t think we are worried,” he said. “In terms of driving and in terms of rhythm, he still hasn’t got into the right rhythm. I think he would have been strong in the race, and it was strong for the little he could have shown.”

A 1-2 in the sprint and a 2-3 in the grand prix? McLaren would have bitten your hand off for a double podium berth after unsuccessfully chasing Mercedes over the first three rounds of the 2026 campaign.

But a first tranche of upgrades to the MCL40, at its historically happy hunting ground around the Hard Rock Stadium, has dramatically changed the outlook of the 2026 season. Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were legitimate contenders this weekend, even if they were helped by Mercedes getting its deployment strategy wrong over the sprint event, rowing it back to a more normal set-up for qualifying and the race.

The end result is that on pure speed McLaren reckons Mercedes still has the slight edge, and the Silver Arrows are introducing their first batch of upgrades in Canada. But McLaren isn’t done upgrading either, with sources suggesting its own Montreal package amounts to around 40 percent of its total car overhaul across both rounds. Watch this space.

There was little enjoyment to be derived from Sunday’s race for Lewis Hamilton, as he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when Verstappen spun ahead of him at the start and then suffered aero damage after a glancing blow from Franco Colapinto.

Hamilton estimated the time loss at half a second and it dropped him into no man’s land for the remainder of the afternoon while his team-mate Charles Leclerc was having all the fun ahead of him, mixing it up with Russell and Piastri.

Leclerc also suffered a disappointing end to his afternoon courtesy of his last-lap spin, which cost him a certain podium, and he did exceedingly well not to suffer a huge accident that would have cost him a lot more than that. But with a car that refused to turn right any longer, Leclerc decided to redraw some of Miami’s chicanes, which cost him a deserved 20-second penalty.

Winner: Franco Colapinto

Colapinto has come in for quite a bit of flak since replacing Jack Doohan at Alpine exactly 12 months ago, not in the least from his own boss Flavio Briatore. But armed with Alpine’s latest aero upgrades and a slightly lighter chassis, Colapinto appears to cut a more confident figure aboard the A526 and that has translated into getting the better of experienced team-mate Pierre Gasly over Miami’s two qualifying sessions, something which hasn’t happened too often.

Colapinto delayed his only pitstop until past the halfway point, propelling up as high as fourth at one point, and Leclerc’s post-race penalty eventually netted him a best-ever points finish in seventh.

Fresh from his Buenos Aires demo run that was attended by an estimated 600,000 Argentinians, it has been a pretty good fortnight for Lionel Messi’s favourite F1 driver. Messi’s children were all sporting Mercedes gear, so perhaps they are harder to convince.

Audi has made a commendable start as a works team from a performance point of view, even if the German manufacturer’s first F1 power unit needs a bit more juice. But its endless list of reliability issues is seriously hurting any chance of keeping up in the midfield, with Nico Hulkenberg completing a grand total of seven laps across both Miami races and Gabriel Bortoleto’s weekend derailed in qualifying.

Audi has always said it is playing the long game, so we won’t judge it too harshly after four race weekends, but the team needs to be able to nail down cleaner weekends if it wants to make progress on the performance side of things and build up some semblance of momentum.

“It was a proper character building weekend,” Hulkenberg said afterwards. “We’ve had some promising signs and the pace in the car is not bad, but obviously we need to be able to finish sessions and get the cars out there. Yeah, just a lot of headwind this weekend, kind of need to regroup, reset now, take it on the chin.

Williams had been one of the more disappointing stories of the 2026 season thus far, but rebounded with a first pass of upgrades by taking a double points finish with Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon. Finishing a pitstop behind Colapinto’s Alpine is not a result that merits a victory parade around Grove’s high street, but it’s a first step as the team fights to both add aero performance and sheds weight off its cars, something which will take time and which can’t be done at once in a cost cap world.

Sainz summed it up best afterwards: “It’s not where we want to be, even if it feels for everyone a bit of a relief. Getting two cars in the points on merit is definitely a good step, but we need to keep pushing because it’s still not where we expected to be at the end of last year.”

Photos from Miami GP – Sunday

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

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Miami GP – Sunday, in photos

We want your opinion!

– The Motorsport.com Team

Mercedes star Kimi Antonelli will be looking to make it a hat-trick of wins as the Formula One season resumes on Sunday with the Miami Grand Prix.

Antonelli is nine points ahead of his second-placed teammate George Russell, following back-to-back wins at the Chinese and Japanese GPs.

Sunday’s race marks the fifth Miami GP after being added to the F1 calendar back in 2022, and comes at a crucial time for the sport. Last month’s scheduled Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix were canceled due to the war in Iran. 

The Miami Grand Prix takes place at the Hard Rock Stadium complex in Miami Gardens, Florida, on Sunday, May 3, at 4 p.m. ET. That makes it a 1 p.m. PT start, while for viewers in the UK it’s 9 p.m. BST. Meanwhile, Australian F1 fans are looking at a 6 a.m. AEST start on Monday morning. 

Livestream the Miami Grand Prix in the US 

F1 racing has a new home on Apple TV, with the 2026 season launching its five-year broadcast run for US viewers. There are ways to stream the events with a paid subscription or for free.

It’s worth noting that if you’ve recently bought a new Apple device and haven’t previously subscribed to the streaming platform, you can take advantage of a three-month free trial within 90 days of purchase. 

If you’re not lucky enough to have bought a new Apple gadget during that time frame, there are two other free options for those new to Apple TV. The platform also offers a seven-day free trial to new subscribers through its dedicated app and the Apple TV channel on Prime Video. Finally, Apple’s subscription bundle, Apple One, will also get you a 30-day free trial of its TV streaming service.

Apple TV Plus currently costs $13 per month in the US for the standalone, ad-free streaming service. It’s also available as part of the Apple One bundle, which starts at $20 per month and includes Apple Music, Apple Arcade and iCloud Plus. 

How to livestream the Miami Grand Prix in the UK 

The Miami GP is available in the UK on Sky Sports. Sky Sports will include the practice rounds and qualifying. If you already have Sky Sports as part of your TV package, you can stream the race via its app. Cord-cutters can watch Sky TV with unlimited Sky Sports on a Now TV membership. 

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Sky subsidiary Now offers streaming access to Sky Sports channels with a Now Sports membership.

You can get a day of access for £15, or sign up to a monthly plan from £35 a month right now.

Livestream the Miami Grand Prix in Canada

F1 fans can watch the Miami GP on TSN and its streaming service, TSN Plus. Existing TSN cable subscribers can also watch at no extra charge using their TV provider’s account login details.

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TSN Plus is a streaming service that costs CA$8 a month and also offers coverage of PGA Tour Live golf, NFL games, F1, NASCAR and the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

Livestream the Miami Grand Prix in Australia

The Miami Grand Prix can be watched Down Under on Fox Sports via Foxtel. If you’re not a Fox subscriber, your best option is to sign up for the streaming service Kayo Sports. 

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A Kayo Sports subscription starts at AU$25 a month and lets you stream on one screen, while its Premium tier costs AU$35 a month for simultaneous viewing on up to three devices.

The service gives you access to a wide range of sports, including F1, NRL, NFL, NHL and MLB, and there are no lock-in contracts.

Better still, if you’re a new customer, you can take advantage of a one-week Kayo Sports free trial.

Formula One 2026 full schedule

You can visit the Formula One website for additional details on the schedule, but here’s a current snapshot of when each main race takes place this season. Practice rounds are excluded.