The race started under storm clouds and ended under a clear sky. Kimi Antonelli stood on the top step of both.

Kimi Antonelli won the Miami Grand Prix to claim his third consecutive Formula 1 victory of the 2026 season, holding off a sustained challenge from Lando Norris across a 57-lap race that was brought forward three hours to beat approaching thunderstorms, featured two spectacular early retirements, a safety car, and a final-lap spin from Charles Leclerc that summed up a chaotic afternoon for Ferrari. The championship leader now sits 24 points clear of George Russell in the standings.

The race began with the kind of first-lap drama that Miami has made its own. Antonelli suffered another sluggish getaway from pole, allowing both Verstappen and Leclerc to draw alongside heading into Turn 1. Antonelli locked up and ran wide. Leclerc took a cautious line that briefly handed him the lead. Verstappen, meanwhile, spun on the exit, dropping to tenth in a single sweeping moment that compromised his entire afternoon. The chaos left Norris and Piastri in clean air for McLaren, slotting into third and fourth immediately.

By lap four, Antonelli had clawed his way back to the front, passing Leclerc before the Ferrari driver returned the favour on lap five. The lead changed hands three times in the opening phase of the race before the safety car erased the narrative entirely.

Two incidents on lap five brought the virtual race to a halt. In the more dramatic of the two, Pierre Gasly’s Alpine was launched into a low-speed barrel roll after being clipped by Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls at the Turn 17 hairpin. The Frenchman ended up halfway up the barrier, the car crumpled around him, and walked away without injury. Lawson retired with terminal damage. Simultaneously, Isack Hadjar (starting from the pitlane after a technical disqualification from qualifying) made an unforced error at the chicane on lap four, tagging the inside wall and shearing off his front-left suspension before sliding into the barriers at low speed. Both Red Bulls were gone before a quarter of the race distance had been completed.

The lap 12 restart reordered the race in McLaren’s favour. Norris took the lead from Leclerc on the restart lap with Antonelli immediately behind. Verstappen, having pitted under the safety car for hard tyres, emerged in a net lead briefly as the frontrunners cycled through their stops around the halfway mark. On much fresher rubber, Antonelli and Norris repassed the Dutchman with ease as his tyres faded in the second stint.

What followed was the defining passage of the race: a prolonged duel between Antonelli and Norris in which the McLaren driver was visibly faster across extended periods but found himself unable to generate the clean air necessary to mount a decisive attack. Dirty air (the turbulent aerodynamic wake left behind a leading car, which reduces the downforce available to the chasing car and makes it significantly harder to maintain speed through corners) was Norris’s enemy throughout the second stint. He managed his rear tyres carefully, biding his time, but Antonelli managed his own degradation with equal composure, even while nursing a downshift issue that became apparent in the closing laps.

Antonelli crossed the line 3.264 seconds clear of Norris. Piastri completed the podium after Leclerc’s final-lap spin, the Ferrari driver tapping the wall but escaping without serious damage to finish sixth behind Russell and Verstappen in a five-way battle that resolved itself only in the final ten laps.

Russell delivered another composed points finish in fourth, a result that, combined with Antonelli’s early wobbles, kept him within mathematical range of the championship. His 24-point deficit is not insurmountable, and Miami confirmed that the Mercedes pairing will define this title fight from both ends. Lewis Hamilton finished seventh in the second Ferrari, nursing a car damaged in early contact with Franco Colapinto, who delivered one of the performances of the race by running as high as fourth before a lap 32 pit stop, ultimately crossing the line eighth.

Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon took ninth and tenth for Williams, both finishing on the lead lap in a result that represented real progress for the underperforming Grove outfit. The double points finish was the kind of result the team needed after a difficult opening to the season.

At the back, Aston Martin and Cadillac occupied the final classified positions, the pattern of the entire 2026 season so far remaining unchanged.

Rafael Nadal waved the chequered flag from the podium. Formula 1 heads to Montreal next, for the Canadian Grand Prix on May 22 to 24.