F1 MIAMI GP 2026 | Antonelli wins, but McLaren looks like the car to beat
Antonelli won by just over 3s from Norris, Piastri half a minute back, Russell more than 40s behind, Verstappen fifth after a recovery drive. The result is clear enough, but the pace picture is a bit less comfortable. More, Leclerc’s P8 deserves a word before anything else: before the spin, the damage, and the penalty, he was in the podium conversation. Then, the final laps undid most of what had been a quietly strong race.
Strategy
Medium-Hard, no real surprises. Degradation was present but never took over: no dramatic collapse, no offset extreme enough to force a second stop into anyone’s plans. Thermal degradation, especially with high temperatures, had been a major concern in Florida in the past, but over the last two years, the phenomenon has been significantly reduced.
Pace picture
The team-level picture is fairly readable. McLaren ahead of Mercedes on median race pace, both in the low 1:33s. Ferrari roughly 0.4–0.6s/lap back, but their distribution varied significantly across different periods of the race. Red Bull is not far from Ferrari in some windows, but with less consistency. Mercedes won, but after the updates, McLaren looks like the stronger package. Enough, though, to say Norris was not just sitting there because of track position.
Race overview
That is what makes Antonelli’s win worth something. Fuel-corrected, the two were often within a couple of tenths through the long Hard stint. Norris had the car, possibly even a slight edge underneath, but never enough to force the race open. Antonelli gave him very little: no weak phase, no scrappy lap, no moment where an attack started to look realistic. Not domination. Just a very controlled win against what may have been the quicker car. Piastri says something similar about the McLaren, but his race was less tidy than Norris’: wider variance through the Medium phase, and the final gap reflects that. Russell is the uncomfortable internal comparison for Mercedes. Same car, different story. From mid-race onwards, he moved away from Antonelli’s pace quite visibly, and forty seconds is a gap that traffic and race phases alone do not explain. Ferrari split in two. Leclerc had podium-level pace for most of the afternoon, then the final laps erased it. Hamilton finished ahead on paper after the penalty, but his race was considerably more anonymous. Verstappen’s fifth is a decent save. The long Hard stint kept Red Bull in the points after the early mistake, but the pace does not put them anywhere near the Mercedes-McLaren level. More of a race patched together well than a real performance signal.
Takeaway
Miami leaves Mercedes in a slightly odd position: they won, but the fastest car on the day was probably Papaya. Antonelli made it count anyway, and that is exactly why this result matters.
