And that’s everything for today. You can join Tom Lutz on Sunday for the race itself, which starts at 4pm local time and 9pm BST, unless the weather picture goes crazy and they pull it forward. It promises to be an unpredictable race, and the big test of the new regulations and how teams adapt to them. The fact we have four different teams occupying the four places on the front two rows shows that there is all to play for, and less than 0.06sec covers the places three to five on the grid. I can’t wait. Thank you for reading and good evening/good night.
Here we have our qualifying standings:
Q3
1 Kimi Antonelli (It) Mercedes GP 1:27.798secs,
2 Max Verstappen (Neth) Red Bull 1:27.964
3 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari 1:28.143
4 Lando Norris (GB) McLaren 1:28.183
5 George Russell (GB) Mercedes GP 1:28.197
6 Lewis Hamilton (GB) Ferrari 1:28.319
7 Oscar Piastri (Aus) McLaren 1:28.500
8 Franco Colapinto (Arg) Alpine 1:28.762
9 Isack Hadjar (Fr) Red Bull 1:28.789
10 Pierre Gasly (Fr) Alpine 1:28.810
Q2 exits
11 Nico Hülkenberg (Ger) Audi 1:29.439
12 Liam Lawson (NZ) RB 1:29.499
13 Oliver Bearman (GB) Haas F1 1:29.567
14 Carlos Sainz Jr (Sp) Williams 1:29.568
15 Esteban Ocon (Fr) Haas 1:29.772
16 Alex Albon (Tha) Williams 1:29.946
Q3 exits
17 Arvid Lindblad (GB) Racing Bulls 1:30.133
18 Fernando Alonso (Sp) Aston Martin 1:31.098
19 Lance Stroll (Can) Aston Martin 1:31.164
20 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Cadillac 1:31.629
21 Sergio Pérez (Mex) Cadillac 1:31.967
22 Gabriel Bortoleto (Br) Audi 1:33.737
Updated
Leclerc says the wind was changing from run to run, making life tricky. As to tomorrow, “it looks wet, how much and when is yet to be defined.” Everyone expected Sunday’s rain to be an issue, no one was talking about Saturday’s wind.
Now Verstappen. “I feel in more control, the upgrades are working … I am already very happy with where we are.” No more moaning Max, for now.
He is hoping for a magic start on Sunday after his loss of places every time of late.
Antonelli has joined Senna and Schumacher in taking his first three poles consecutively.
A beaming Antonelli heads for his interview, this time with Martin Brundle. Let’s hope he doesn’t pass on that cold.
The championship leader’s day had begun badly with his poor start in the sprint but that was a perfect response. Only he and Verstappen broke 1:28, I think.
Pole for Antonelli!
Verstappen second, Leclerc third, Norris fourth.
Antonelli can’t go faster. Can Verstappen?
Norris fourth, Leclerc second, Hamilton sixth.
Russell stays fifth. Piastri seventh.
Verstappen will be the last man on the track.
Five minutes left. Tyres being changed. This is not over but whatever happens Antonelli’s response to the sprint race has been superb.
Here comes Antonelli, into the 1:27s! Three tenths faster than Leclerc, Verstappen and Norris.
But Verstappen goes quicker, then Leclerc!
All 10 have new tyres, in fact. Piastri comes through but Norris immediately goes half a second quicker.
Q3. Piastri and Norris on new tyres. Ted Kravitz’s verdict is that McLaren’s success yesterday left them happy and their rivals were less happy, didn’t settle and have found some more.
Zak Brown says it was not wind, but a boost problem, that was hurting Norris. He sounds confident that the Briton and Piastri can both do better in Q3, to threaten Verstappen’s pole.
Out go Hülkenberg, Lawson, Bearman, Sainz and Ocon. Colapinto makes Q3 for the first time this season. That’s what we do know. What we don’t know is how reflective of tomorrow’s race any of this will be, if it’s the vagaries of the weather that are affecting the leading cars’ performances.
Piastri up to fourth, as Norris eases up to seventh, away from danger. Relief for the world champion. It’s down to wind speed and direction, growls Brundle.
Verstappen pulls it out, and Leclerc goes third.
Antonelli, after a shabby sprint race, is back to his qualifying best. 1:28.289, faster still, now 0.188 faster than the best of Hamilton and Russell.
Updated
Norris is talking about a loss of power at turn 16, McLaren are blaming wind. Mysterious. Especially as those were, in fact, new tyres, according to Brundle, who is still running on hoarse power.
McLaren and their tyre preservation schemes are making things a little nervy but he at least comes in ninth. Hang on, were those new tyres?
Updated
Ocon, Hülkenberg, Bearman, Albon, Sainz and Norris in the drop zone, but the world champion has the track to himself.
Lando Norris in trouble – no time set. Has one real shot to get into Q3 from here.
Antonelli knocks the Ferraris off the top and Russell splits them, getting close to his teammate.
Leclerc then Hamilton go fastest. Piastri, though, is having some difficulties.
Verstappen puts in a 1:28.931. Not great, but a second better than Hülkenberg.
The Red Bulls are out, Max Verstappen dancing around to get the tyres up to speed.
Here we go again.
A weird old Q1, with leading teams conserving tyres on some drivers, making all comparisons difficult. Q2 should be less opaque but will be delayed, as the marshals recover Bortoleto’s car.
Ouch. More flames for Audi, this time Bortoleto. Not a happy weekend, though Hülkenberg did make it to 12th fastest.
Updated
Leclerc goes second, knocking down Verstappen. Piastri, though, is 16th. Still, he didn’t use any new tyres and gets through by two 10ths.
Bortoleto did make it out, but his time will not trouble the top 16.
Antonelli on new tyres goes fastest. So a second faster than Russell but it’s apples and oranges.
Oscar Piastri cannot better 11th. Russell up to 7th.
Bortoleto looks like he is coming out. Ted Kravitz, speaking at length, claims to be lost for words.
With 5 mins to go, Piastri is 11th and Russell 12th. Not near the cutoff but disappointing.
Updated
Lindblad, Alonso, Stroll, Pérez, Bottas, and Bortoleto in the drop zone.
Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar on new tyres and so their sixth and seventh places are not exactly on the level with everyone else.
Piastri a second off Verstappen and is down in seventh, and there is a big contrast between the two Mercedes as well. Antonelli goes second, ahead of Norris, but Russell is in eighth.
Updated
Hamilton can’t catch Leclerc, and Norris can’t beat Verstappen. After all the moaning from Verstappen around the previous three races, has he got something to smile about?
It’s Max Verstappen who takes the lead from Bearman by a second and when Charles Leclerc comes through he is a third of a second behind the Red Bull.
The slower teams are coming through, setting times. Oliver Bearman leading Ocon, Lindblad, Hülkenberg, Alonso, Pérez …
Things have got worse for Audi. Gabriel Bortoleto was disqualified for an air intake problem and they can’t get to the bottom of what caused it. As a result, Bortoleto’s mechanics have been helping getting Hülkenberg’s car ready – and it looks as if he will make it. And the cars are coming out.
Updated
Martin “Deep Throat” Brundle is at the mic now. He caught a cold on his flight and sounds worse than Reliant Robin with a broken exhaust.
Not long now. It’s 53C and looking beautiful, but there’s a good chance of rain at some point tomorrow. Will that make qualifying less important or more important?
Nico Hülkenberg’s car is in a race already. He flamed out before the sprint race, the Audi team had to wait till that ended to pick the car up, and they have been working flat out to get it ready.
wOf course, F1 in the States is not just races. Cadillac are now on the grid – albeit near the back of it – but Haas are well established and, after three races, were fourth in the constructors’ standings. They have dropped back to third after missing out on points in the Miami sprint race, but Giles Richards spoke to their team principal, Ayao Komatsu, beforehand.
Komatsu speaks with an enthusiasm and openness that is refreshing in the corporate F1 world. His lack of any hesitation to consider whether he is fulfilling a party line is endearing and it is all but impossible not to warm to him. Originally a fan of motorbikes, he was only 14 when he came to the conclusion that F1 held the promise of a new life.
“Part of the frustration I had in Japan was this culture of not being different from other people,” he says. “If you wanted to do something which may not be in the mainstream of what your government wants to do, then you are classified as the outcast and then they don’t give a shit. I really wasn’t into that kind of normalisation.
“F1 looked like a really exciting world and ticked everything I was looking for. It was international, multicultural and had competitiveness. I really wanted to go into the world where if you are good at something, you get rewarded, sport is obviously one of those things.”
Japanese but educated at Warwick University and thereby a Coventry City fan, Komatsu is no Guenther Steiner – to mention Haas’s Drive to Survive star – but a fascinating figure in his own right.
Charles Leclerc just gave a perfect insight into the training drivers undertake, talking Sky’s interviewer through a lap of the Miami circuit in his head, corner by corner and straight by straight. He was just under five seconds out over how long it actually takes, mind.
Miami is the first of three grands prix in the United States this summer. As recently as 2011, there were zero F1 races, under the aegis of Bernie Ecclestone. To be fair to old beardie, he did bring the US GP back but once he had surrendered rights the new owners at Liberty Media set about expanding the sport’s footprint in the land of the free, exemplified by the launch of Drive to Survive on Netflix in 2019. The Miami race followed in 2022 and Las Vegas 12 months later.
One person who very much admits the role of the Netflix documentary in bringing them to the sport is running this weekend’s race. Katharina Nowak, F1’s youngest race president at 29, told our Giles Richards:
“I’ve actually grown into F1. While I knew what the sport was and I remember summers sitting in front of the TV, I didn’t understand it fully and have a respect for it like I do now,” she says. “I really got an understanding for the sport and respect for the sport while watching [the Netflix documentary series] Drive to Survive.
“So I really was one of those bandwagon F1 fans that jumped on once Drive to Survive came out and that gave me an even more a better introduction into working in F1 than I could have probably gotten otherwise.”
Qualifying buildup
And now for part 2: qualifying for Sunday’s main race.
One word to sum up the sprint race? “Daunting.” That was George Russell’s verdict on the fruits of the upgrades brought by McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull, which dragged the previously dominant Mercedes back to the field.
This is what the sprint did to the top 10 in the drivers’ standings:
1 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 75pts
2 George Russell Mercedes 68
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 55
4 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 43
5 Lando Norris McLaren 33
6 Oscar Piastri McLaren 28
7 Oliver Bearman Haas 17
8 Pierre Gasly Alpine 16
9 Max Verstappen Red Bull 16
10 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls 10
Russell is now only seven points, rather than nine, behind Kimi Antonelli, but Charles Leclerc is a point closer to him, while the two McLarens know a repeat result in the main race would move them to within striking distance of the top places.
Do email me your thoughts on the weekend so far.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
