Antonelli makes it three from three at Miami as Leclerc's late spin tears up the order
Round 4 · Miami International Autodrome · 4 May 2026
Kimi Antonelli won a frantic Miami Grand Prix from pole position to extend his perfect start to the 2026 season, but the headline result told only half the story. A two-stop strategic chess match turned into open warfare in the closing laps, with George Russell driving a wounded car back into the points, Max Verstappen rueing a tyre call that cost him the win, and Charles Leclerc throwing away a front-row finish in the space of four corners.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri completed the podium for McLaren, but the day's biggest talking point came after the chequered flag, when stewards demoted Leclerc from sixth to eighth for repeatedly cutting the track on a damaged Ferrari — a decision the Monegasque accepted with a flat "it was all on me."
Qualifying — Antonelli's third pole on the bounce
For a driver who only graduated to Mercedes last winter, Antonelli is making this look unreasonably easy. Saturday delivered his third consecutive pole, the kind of run not seen from a sophomore in years, and the gap to the rest was sharper than the bare numbers suggest. Verstappen split the Mercedes from the McLarens in second, 0.166s adrift, with Leclerc joining him on the second row in P3.
Norris and Piastri started fourth and fifth. Russell, struggling for one-lap pace all weekend, lined up sixth — a position that would matter more than he could have predicted.
The session also produced its share of controversy. Isack Hadjar was excluded from qualifying after a parc fermé infringement on the Red Bull, condemning the rookie to a pit-lane start. The exclusion would book-end an awful weekend for the Frenchman before lap 10 was up.
Race — chaos at the lights, chaos at the flag
Lap 1 — Antonelli locks up, Verstappen spins, Leclerc leads
Antonelli's start wasn't a disaster, but it wasn't clean either. Leclerc braked earlier than the polesitter expected into Turn 1, forcing Antonelli to lock up in avoidance and concede the lead. "I didn't expect Charles to brake that early — to avoid him, I locked up," he admitted afterwards.
Behind them, the kind of opening lap Miami specialises in. Verstappen tagged Leclerc, lost the rear, and pirouetted through 360 degrees at Turn 2 — "I just lost the rear and then I tried to minimise the damage" — dropping the Red Bull to P10. Hamilton clipped Franco Colapinto at Turn 11, scattered debris, and spent the rest of the afternoon nursing a compromised car. Stewards looked at both incidents and decided no further action was required.
By the end of the first tour, Leclerc led, with Antonelli, Norris, Piastri and Russell trailing. Verstappen was already in damage-limitation mode.
Laps 2–7 — three-way duel for the lead
What followed was the kind of opening stint qualifying-pace tracks rarely deliver. Antonelli swept past Leclerc into Turn 17 on lap 4 to reclaim the lead, only for Leclerc to fight straight back through the following lap. The two ran nose-to-tail with Norris stalking from a third-row launch that had gone better than McLaren had any right to expect.
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The race's defining moment arrived early. Hadjar speared into the Turn 14 wall and was visibly seen slamming his steering wheel as he climbed out — and within seconds, contact between Pierre Gasly and Liam Lawson sent the Alpine pitching upside-down at high speed. Gasly walked away unhurt: "It was definitely a scary feeling being flipped over in a Formula One car."
The Safety Car came out and the strategic dominoes began to fall. Red Bull rolled the dice early with Verstappen, fitting hards from P8 and shuffling him back to P16. Lawson had to retire from the contact damage; Nico Hulkenberg parked his Audi soon after with a technical failure. Three retirements in five laps.
Laps 11–26 — Norris leads, Mercedes' undercut sets up
The race resumed and Norris, who had bided his time during the Antonelli–Leclerc joust, made his move count. He took the lead from Leclerc on lap 11 with Antonelli relegated to P2. From there it became a Norris–Antonelli–Leclerc tow, with the McLaren managing his tyres with the patience of a champion-elect.
The pit windows opened around lap 21 and Russell jumped first, bolting on hards and emerging in P12 — the early stop that would prove crucial. Leclerc followed on lap 22, but Ferrari fumbled a 3.7-second pit stop and dropped him behind Russell into P9 — a cumulative twelve-second swing that effectively ended his fight for the lead.
Mercedes had seen enough. On lap 27 they pulled the trigger on Antonelli, and the undercut was decisive: he emerged just behind Verstappen and Hamilton, both already on older rubber. Norris stopped a lap later and slotted in behind. Piastri stayed out longest from the lead, finally stopping on lap 29 and rejoining seventh.
Antonelli scythed past Verstappen on lap 29; Norris breezed through moments later. By lap 30, the order at the front read Antonelli, Norris, Piastri — and it would not change.
Laps 30–55 — Antonelli holds, Verstappen fades, Leclerc closes
There was one moment of mid-stint anxiety. On lap 34, Antonelli flagged a possible gearbox issue on the radio, but the W17 kept rolling and the gap to Norris held around a second. Behind them, Verstappen began to feel exactly what his team had warned him about. The hard-tyre stint dragged on, the rubber gave up, and the Red Bull leaked time at half a second a lap. "It was just too difficult to keep the tyres alive," Verstappen would later concede. "On the medium I felt a bit better."
His first sign of trouble came from a recovering Leclerc, who closed under a second by lap 46 and dived past into Turn 1. Verstappen, never one to let a position slide cleanly, came back into Turn 5; Leclerc then resettled the matter into Turn 11. Two laps later, Piastri arrived from McLaren's safer two-stop and put a clean move on the Red Bull through Turn 17.
Antonelli, meanwhile, had his own concern: track limits. A second strike on lap 44 left the Mercedes one warning away from a five-second penalty he could not afford. He moderated, Norris did not have the pace to capitalise, and the gap held steady inside two seconds.
Valtteri Bottas, on Cadillac's home debut, took a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Laps 54–57 — the wheels come off
The closing five laps were the kind of madness Miami seems determined to deliver. On lap 54, Russell — recovering well from the early stop — closed on Verstappen and the two made contact. Russell came off worst, with damage to his front wing. "I think he hit my tyre," he reported tersely.
Two laps later, Leclerc — still running an honourable third on the road — spun at Turn 3 and tagged the wall. The Ferrari kept moving, but with bent steering and a damaged floor, the right-handers became almost impossible to take cleanly. He cut several over the next two laps. The stewards saw it differently from him.
In the final two laps, the damaged Ferrari was overhauled by Piastri, then Russell — front-wing-damaged but still fearsome — and finally Verstappen on the line. Leclerc crossed sixth on the road. He would not stay there.
Antonelli took the flag 3.264 seconds clear of Norris, with Piastri 27 seconds back in third. It was the rookie's third consecutive win — the first time in the modern era a driver has converted three poles in a row into three victories in a row.
Leclerc was hit with a 20-second penalty (a drive-through converted) for repeatedly leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage on the closing laps. His argument that the damage made right-handers physically impossible was rejected. Final position: P8.
Verstappen picked up a 5-second penalty for crossing the white line at the pit exit. The 12-second buffer he had behind sixth-placed Hamilton meant he kept P5.
Russell was looked at for his contact with Verstappen. No further action.
Classification — top 10
| Pos | Driver | Team | Gap | Pts | | 1 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | — | 25 | | 2 | Lando Norris | McLaren | +3.264s | 18 | | 3 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | +27.092s | 15 | | 4 | George Russell | Mercedes | +43.051s | 12 | | 5 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | +48.949s | 10 | | 6 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | | 8 | | 7 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | | 6 | | 8 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | (post-penalty) | 4 | | 9 | Carlos Sainz | Williams | | 2 | | 10 | Alex Albon | Williams | | 1 |
Kimi Antonelli (P1): "That was not an easy race at all, but I'm so happy we were able to bring the victory home. The team did a great strategy — we did a massive undercut."
Lando Norris (P2): "We leave Miami with mixed feelings. I felt I drove very well all weekend and extracted everything from the car. We just got undercut. We should have boxed first."
Oscar Piastri (P3): "To come away with a double podium is really positive for the team."
George Russell (P4): "A tough afternoon. The early laps felt OK and I thought we were in the fight, but my pace wasn't strong on the hard."
Max Verstappen (P5): "I just lost the rear at Turn 2 and tried to minimise the damage with the 360. We opted to go early onto the hard compound and in hindsight that stint was probably a bit too long. It was just too difficult to keep the tyres alive."
Lewis Hamilton (P6): "Today's race was affected by what happened on the opening lap. With the damage I sustained, this was the best result. Not a good weekend at all."
Charles Leclerc (P8 post-penalty): "It's all on me. Very disappointed with my mistake — it shouldn't happen. In the space of four corners I put a very strong race in the bin."
What the teams said
Toto Wolff (Mercedes): "A fascinating and exciting race. It wasn't easy for us at all this weekend, but we made some great strategic decisions when it mattered."
Andrea Stella (McLaren): "A very positive weekend for the entire team. Our upgrades performed exactly as we had hoped. The development battle will be crucial this season with four teams in condition to fight."
Fred Vasseur (Ferrari): "A challenging Sunday on both sides of the garage. There was a big performance delta between the part where Charles was leading and the later part."
Flavio Briatore (Alpine): "For Pierre it's a disappointing outcome. On the other side, Franco has rounded off a really good week."
Championship picture
Antonelli now leads the Drivers' standings by 20 points after four rounds — three wins, one second from his rookie campaign at Mercedes. Norris remains his closest challenger; Piastri's first podium of 2026 keeps McLaren firmly in the conversation.
The cars head to Montreal next, where Antonelli will be looking to make it four in a row at a track that should suit Mercedes' long-run pace. He has earned the right to be the favourite. He has yet to give anyone reason to think he won't be again.
Next round: Canadian Grand Prix · Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montreal · 22–24 May 2026.
