Kimi Antonelli won the 2026 Miami Grand Prix from pole position, beating Lando Norris by 3.264 seconds to claim his third consecutive victory and extend his championship lead to 20 points. The race behind him was anything but routine: Max Verstappen spun on the opening lap, Pierre Gasly's Alpine was flipped upside down in a collision with Liam Lawson, and Charles Leclerc received a 20-second time penalty for repeated track limits violations — all before a last-lap spin that the Ferrari driver called "all on me."
Lap 1: Leclerc's lightning start and Verstappen's spin
The drama began at Turn 1. Antonelli had another tricky getaway from pole, and Leclerc — starting P3 — delivered a lightning-fast reaction to shoot around the outside and take the lead. Both Antonelli and Verstappen locked up into the braking zone, and at Turn 2, Verstappen lost the rear of his Red Bull and completed a full spin, dropping to P10 and forcing cars behind into evasive action.
Leclerc led the opening laps, but the race was about to be turned on its head by events further back in the pack.
The Gasly-Lawson incident and Safety Car
On Lap 4, Liam Lawson suffered sudden gearbox failure on his Racing Bulls car and could not stop. Pierre Gasly moved up the outside to pass, but Lawson's car ploughed into the left-rear side of Gasly's Alpine, flipping it upside down before it hit the wall. Gasly was unharmed but the incident triggered an immediate Safety Car.
The Safety Car period reshuffled strategy across the field. Red Bull pitted Verstappen to fit hard tyres, a gamble that would prove costly later in the race. Antonelli, Norris, and the rest of the front-runners stayed out.
Isack Hadjar's race also ended early: the Red Bull driver hit the wall at Turn 14 after bumping over the apex and breaking his suspension. He called it "a very silly mistake" and said "this one really hurts."
Antonelli takes control
After the restart, Antonelli set about recovering the lead he had lost at the start. He passed Leclerc through wheel-to-wheel racing and then executed an undercut during the pit stop phase to leapfrog Norris, who had been running in the effective lead after Leclerc's penalty began to bite.
Norris acknowledged McLaren "just got undercut" and insisted the team had "no excuses" for missing out on the win. Oscar Piastri completed the podium in P3, 27.092 seconds behind Antonelli, confirming McLaren's upgraded car remained competitive even if it could not match the Mercedes in race trim.
Verstappen's penalty and tyre struggle
Verstappen, who had pitted under the Safety Car for hard tyres, briefly ran near the front but struggled with degradation. He admitted regret over the strategy call, saying it was "just too difficult to keep the tyres alive." To compound his problems, he received a five-second time penalty for crossing the white line at the pit exit, dropping him to P5 behind Russell.
Russell finished P4 but described the weekend as "clearly an outlier" for him, suggesting his 43-second gap to team-mate Antonelli was not representative of the true Mercedes pecking order.
Leclerc's penalty and final-lap spin
Leclerc's race unravelled in two stages. First, stewards handed him a 20-second time penalty for leaving the track on several occasions without a justifiable reason — a track limits punishment that dropped him from P6 to P8 in the final classification. Then, on the last lap, Leclerc spun and bumped the wall, allowing Russell and Verstappen to pass. He admitted the error was "all on me."
Hamilton, running behind the chaos, finished P6 and described the race as "tough" and said he had "nothing" to work with, calling it a weekend in "no man's land."
Full race classification
| Pos | Driver | Team | Laps | Time | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 57 | 1:33:19.273 | 25 |
| 2 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 57 | +3.264s | 18 |
| 3 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 57 | +27.092s | 15 |
| 4 | George Russell | Mercedes | 57 | +43.051s | 12 |
| 5 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 57 | +48.949s | 10 |
| 6 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 57 | +53.753s | 8 |
| 7 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | 57 | +61.871s | 6 |
| 8 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 57 | +64.245s | 4 |
| 9 | Carlos Sainz | Williams | 57 | +82.072s | 2 |
| 10 | Alexander Albon | Williams | 57 | +90.972s | 1 |
| 11 | Oliver Bearman | Haas | 56 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 12 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | 56 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 13 | Esteban Ocon | Haas | 56 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 14 | Arvid Lindblad | Racing Bulls | 56 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 15 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | 56 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 16 | Sergio Perez | Cadillac | 56 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 17 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 56 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 18 | Valtteri Bottas | Cadillac | 55 | +2 laps | 0 |
| NC | Nico Hulkenberg | Audi | 7 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | Liam Lawson | Racing Bulls | 6 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | 4 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | 4 | DNF | 0 |
Fastest lap: Lando Norris (McLaren), 1:31.869 on lap 35.
Championship impact
Antonelli's third consecutive victory extends his drivers' championship lead to 20 points over Russell. Mercedes consolidate their constructors' advantage, while McLaren's double podium keeps them in the fight. Verstappen's P5 — despite the Lap 1 spin and penalty — shows Red Bull's race pace is genuine, even if execution remains a problem. Ferrari's difficult weekend, with Leclerc penalised and Hamilton in "no man's land," leaves the Scuderia searching for answers heading to Canada.