Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli overcame a poor start from pole to take his third consecutive win of 2026 in the F1 Miami Grand Prix and extend his championship lead to 20 points.
The only teenager to lead the F1 world championship dropped to third behind Charles Leclerc of Ferrari and McLaren’s Lando Norris after a slow getaway and an off-track excursion in Turn 1. But the young Italian played a patience game, moving up to second on Lap 12 when both he and Norris passed Leclerc, before using clever strategy to get past the McLaren.
An early pitstop on Lap 26 to undercut Norris worked like a charm and Antonelli withstood the challenge from the reigning world champion for the next 30 laps to take the checkered flag by 3.264 seconds.
“It was a good race, a very special one, but it was not an easy one because I had a bit of everything. The start was still not great, plus I did a mistake, then I was lucky with how things played out,” said Antonelli. “Luckily, the undercut worked very well, and then we found ourselves being chased. But it was not easy because Lando was quick and he was applying a lot of pressure and I just knew I couldn’t make any mistakes.”
Antonelli also complained about gearbox issues during the race, but overcome that adversity as he fought off the challenge from Norris.
“I had two or three laps where I wasn’t getting some of the downshifts, and then I had a couple of laps where it wouldn’t upshift from seventh to eighth,” he said. “It was just a matter of those few laps and then it was fine. Obviously, it was adding stress because I was being chased and I knew I couldn’t make any mistakes, and that wasn’t helping for sure.”
The victory made Antonelli the first driver to win his first three F1 races from pole and extended his championship lead over teammate George Russell, 100-80. Leclerc lies third on 59. Mercedes continues to dominate the constructor points with 180, with Ferrari second at 110 and McLaren third with 94.
Meanwhile, Norris missed out on the victory but expressed happiness with the team’s upgrades, which put it back into the mix for wins after McLaren failed to show championship form in the first three races of the season.
“I think I’m just very happy with the situation we’re in, which is we’re fighting for wins or fighting for the win today, a pole, the Sprint win,” said Norris, who led teammate Oscar Piastri in a McLaren 1-2 in Saturday’s Miami Sprint race. “If you look at our pace in the races over the last couple [of events], even though we were fighting for podiums and wins, and Oscar was, the pace and the speed we had was certainly not there, so the fact we made such a big step this weekend is great to see and I’m very proud of the team.”
That said, Norris also felt that the team likely missed an opportunity to do better by allowing Antonelli to execute the undercut and gain the lead after their pitstops.
“You always have to look at it and ask yourself the question, ‘do you feel like you maximised everything today?’ and I’m unsure about that,” said Norris. “[Antonelli] might have still passed me later on in the second stint if we boxed earlier, but at least we would have given ourselves a fighting chance.”
Piastri fought some adversity of his own to climb onto the podium, lying sixth once the pitstops played out and needing to make some moves in the second half of the race to grab third. He followed Leclerc up the order past Russell and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen before finally making it onto the bottom step with two laps to go when he passed the Ferrari driver.
“I think in terms of the result, very happy,” said Piastri. “Obviously, for a long part of that race, it definitely wasn’t looking like a podium, so to end up in third is a really good result. I think the whole weekend I’ve been just that tenth or two off most of the time, which has made life a little bit trickier than it should have been at points.”
Unfortunately for Leclerc, he spun on the penultimate lap trying to regain third and brushed the wall, losing spots to Russell and Verstappen on the final lap as he nursed his damaged car home. He ended the day sixth.
“The start and race overall went well and we were fighting for the podium,” said Leclerc. “At the end, unfortunately, I made a mistake that cost me several positions. That’s on me and I will make sure I don’t repeat it again.”
On Saturday, Norris took the F1 Sprint win in a race that appeared to signal a resurgence of the McLaren team as it scored a 1-2 finish with its upgraded car. Ferrari also showed that its updates brought some speed with Leclerc finishing off the Sprint podium.
“We expected the upgrades to be a good step forward and they have been, and hopefully they are again in Canada,” said Piastri. “But obviously Mercedes didn’t bring a lot this weekend and they also have an upgrade package for Canada, so we’ll have to wait and see how much that’s worth for them.”
Canadian Lance Stroll finished 17th in both the Sprint and Grand Prix in Miami.
The next race weekend goes in Montreal on May 22-24, where the Canadian Grand Prix will also host a Sprint race.
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