Antonelli scores second win on the trot benefitting from well-timed Safety Car at Suzuka, even as it disadvantages P4 Russell; Piastri gives McLaren signs of life with impressive P2 drive; Leclerc holds off Russell for final podium position

While Mercedes young hard charger Kimi Antonelli started from pole and went on to win the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, the 19-year-old’s road to his second consecutive victory was anything but straightforward. Both he and Silver Arrows’ teammate George Russell, who started alongside Antonelli from P2 on the grid, faced the team’s early season Achilles heel by bogging down when the lights went out to start the race at the famed Suzuka Circuit, watching with a sinking feeling as their rivals swallowed them up en masse. Antonelli dropped like a stone to P6, while Russell fared somewhat better by only falling two places to P4. The main beneficiary of Mercedes’ misfortune was McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who was looking to simply start and finish his first GP of the season here in Round 3 after an embarrassing crash out at his home race in Melbourne and than a mechanical Did Not Start in Japan two weeks ago. Piastri surged to the front and then began gapping the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and his own teammate, Lando Norris. Meanwhile, the two Mercedes men set about making up for their starting woes as quickly as possible. By Lap 3, Russell passed Norris for third and a lap later he made easy work of Leclerc’s Prancing Horse to get back to P2. He then began closing in on the front-running Piastri, passing the Aussie for the lead on Lap  8 but then promptly being re-passed for first by the McLaren due to the complexities of the energy recharge and deployment required of these new power units.

Here’s the moment Bearman went into the barriers at Spoon #F1 #JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/XmurXApWkp

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 29, 2026

For his part, Antonelli stayed cool despite his disastrous getaway, methodically working his way to the front. He was able to pick off Norris for P4 on Lap 11 and then Leclerc to get back into the podium positions and P3 some four laps later. But the young Italian ace suffered a snap of oversteer that allowed Leclerc to retake the position. Now, it became clear that pit stops were imminent, all drivers but one out of twenty two starting on the Medium Pirelli tires in anticipation of a one-stop Medium to Hards strategy. Norris was the first to blink and gamble on the undercut on Lap 17, with Leclerc covering him off the next lap and then Piastri following the Monegasque in for his own fresh Hard rubber. Russell debated with his engineer, finally making the call for a stop on Lap 21, while Antonelli stayed out, presumably for one additional lap. It couldn’t have been worse timing for Russell or better timing for Antonelli, as Haas’s Oliver Bearman suffered a lurid high-impact crash when he came upon the far too slow Alpine of Franco Colapinto, who was presumably recharging by dawdling on the racing line. While Bearman came away with a sore leg after the 50-G sideways hit into the barriers, he was OK in the end and the Safety Car was, of course, deployed. It also raised some serious questions about the overall safety of this new formula, where drivers are forced to lift to recharge their batteries in places on a track that no racing driver would ever think of doing normally and the unpredictability of those individual decisions.

Bigger picture questions aside, the Safety Car meant that Antonelli, running in the lead after the first green flag pit cycle, got a delightfully cheap stop under the reduced pace of the SC. He lost a relative fraction of the usual 22-second pit lane delta to his slow moving competitors and was able to reemerge with his lead intact. His teammate Russell, now third, complained bitterly about his bad luck, and Piastri in P2 was also disadvantaged. When the Safety Car ended, Antonelli streaked away in clean air and onward to victory, leaving the other top contenders to haggle over the podium places. While Piastri was strong enough to hold off all comers and secure a much needed second place when all was said and done, Lecelrc got the better of Russell on Lap 38 when the Merc had a brief mechanical gremlin, overtaking him for P5. From there, the two had a ding dong battle to the end, both getting by Leclerc’s teammate Lewis Hamilton in the process, despite Hamilton also pitting under the Safety Car. Russell did manage to pass Leclerc for P3 with only five laps to go in this 56-lap contest, but Leclerc immediately took back that last podium spot with a re-pass and held it to the end of the race. Norris got by Hamilton late to secure P5, making it an excellent points scoring day for McLaren when they had to have one. For Antonelli, his second win of 2026 put him in the points lead ahead of Russell, making him the youngest ever F1 driver to claim that honor.

Top 10 finishers of the Japanese GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

Due to the cancellations of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the next race is an unusually long way away — May 3rd in Miami. McLaren and Ferrari will be keen to keep honing their 2026 machines in the hopes of taking the fight to mighty Mercedes. And the drivers will surely enjoy the extra time to fine tune the frankly strange driving style required of these new power units. That is, if FIA don’t change the rules in the interim — hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

Norris snatches pole at Interlagos with gutsy final effort; Antonelli impresses in P2, Leclerc carries Ferrari hopes in P3; Verstappen astonishingly bounced in Q1 as Red Bull search for answers

With time running out in the final session of Saturday Qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, McLaren’s Lando Norris put in a superb final effort worthy of his Drivers’ Championship points lead and title aspirations. Norris, who had muffed his first flying lap, stormed to a 1:09.511 time when he crossed the stripe, good enough for pole position in Sunday’s race and also a bit of psychological edge over his Papaya teammate, Oscar Piastri, who could only muster P4 on the pylon with his best try. With Norris having already won the earlier Sprint Race and starting from the pole for the Grand Prix at the short but intense Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, aka Interlagos, as well as having overhauled his Aussie stablemate and archrival in the points, the young Englishman set himself up nicely to try and nail down his first career F1 crown. Piastri, on the other hand will be desperate to reassert some kind of momentum with only four more races remaining in 2025, Norris having outscored him in every race since his last win in the Netherlands back on August 31st.

Perhaps more newsworthy than who earned the upper ranks of the starting grid was who didn’t, and chief among them was an astonishingly poor Q1 time by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen that mired him in P16 and knocked him out in the first round. It was a serious ding to the Dutchman’s underdog title aspirations and Red Bull will have to figure out how to make the car go faster overnight after dialing it in the wrong direction before quali and all while in parc fermé conditions. With potentially heavy weather forecast for Sunday’s race, they may be hoping for that rainy day so that Verstappen can potentially replicate his astonishing wet weather win from last year, when he stormed to victory from P17. The second Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also struggled for grip and could not get out of Q2, with only the thirteenth fastest time on the board in that session.

Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli put in a stonking effort to overhaul Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and take P2 on the grid, demoting Lecerc to P3 and the second row alongside the P4 Piastri. Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar continued his remarkable rookie campaign with a solid Q3 effort good enough for P5, bettering the second Merc of George Russell, who so struggled on the favored Soft Pirelli rubber that he actaully gambled on Mediums for his final run, to little or no appreciable effect.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Sao Paulo GP:

#	DRIVER	TEAM	TIME	TYRE
1	Lando NORRIS	McLaren	1:09.511
2	Kimi ANTONELLI	Mercedes	1:09.685
3	Charles LECLERC	Ferrari	1:09.805
4	Oscar PIASTRI	McLaren	1:09.886
5	Isack HADJAR	Racing Bulls	1:09.931
6	George RUSSELL	Mercedes	1:09.942
7	Liam LAWSON	Racing Bulls	1:09.962
8	Oliver BEARMAN	Haas	1:09.977
9	Pierre GASLY	Alpine	1:10.002
10	Nico HULKENBERG	Stake	1:10.039

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live beginning at noon on ESPN2 here in the States. With some possibly wild weather forecast, it could be a very unpredictable race and maybe Vrstappen’s only chance to get back in the action. Norris, however, will be hoping for smooth sailing from the front as he looks to keep gapping teammate Piastri down the home stretch. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

McLaren recover from early race bobbles to deliver masterclass in Miami, as Piastri takes dominant victory, Norris P2 ahead of Mercedes’ Russell; pole-sitting Verstappen settles for P4; tensions boil over at Ferrari en route to mediocre results

Six rounds into the 2025 Formula 1 season, the trend lines are becoming clear — that McLaren are the dominant team — and that was thoroughly reinforced during Sunday’s Miami grand Prix. In F1’s first of three visits to the United States, McLaren stomped their authority on the race despite a shambolic start by their top-placed car, Lando Norris, with Oscar Piastri pouncing on his teammate’s pace to position himself for the eventual victory. With Red Bull’s peerless Max Verstappen starting from pole after another excellent effort during Saturday Qualifying and Norris lining up alongside him in P2 on the grid, Norris went for the hyper-aggressive option when the lights went out and the cars steamed down into Turn 1 of the temporary Miami International Autodrome. While Verstappen has made a habit of going toe-to-toe with the McLaren duo this year, in one instance earning a race-deciding penalty in Saudi Arabia for cutting a chicane to maintain the lead against Piastri on the opening lap, here it was Norris who forced the issue and faced the consequences as a result. The young Briton attempted to stuff his McLaren up the inside after Verstappen locked up briefly into T1, putting himself on the outside line heading into Turn 2. While the bold move briefly gave Norris the lead, Verstappen was able to squeeze Norris off the track there, where the McLaren driver lost multiple positions as the lead pack scurried by him, quickly relegating him to sixth.

A frenetic first few corners in Miami 😱

The Red Bull of Max Verstappen just keeps hold of his lead on the opening lap ⬇️#F1 #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/e2GKtq9KM5

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 4, 2025

Despite Norris’s protestations, Verstappen’s racing was judged to be clean and no sanctions were issued. That kerfuffle redounded to teammate Piastri’s benefit and the young Aussie and currrent Championship points leader, who had only qualified P4, was quickly promoted to third place on the track. After a brief Virtual Safety Car caused by the unlucky Jack Doohan’s puncture and subsequent on-track DNF, Piastri quickly made a Lap 4 overtaking maneuver on Mercedes’ promising young pilot, Kimi Antonelli, to seize P2 behind Verstappen. Norris meanwhile used his MCL39’s superior pace to quickly dispatch the Williams of Alexander Albon, the second Mercedes of George Russell and then Antonelli, working himself back up into a podium position after his disappointing opening lap. In front of all that, Piastri was relentlessly hunting down Verstappen’s Red Bull, and despite the Dutch Master’s best defensive efforts, Piastri made the decisive pass on him for the lead of the race on Lap 14 when Verstappen went too deep into Turn 1 and allowed the McLaren to slide on by. While Verstappen was able to hold off Norris for a few more laps, the second McLaren finally made a move that stuck for second place on Lap 18 even after a major, multi-lap battle saw Norris actually give the position back earlier in the lap for forcing the Red Bull off.

Parallel passing for the McLaren pairing 😮‍💨💨

These moves from Piastri and Norris were crucial overtakes on the way to their 1-2 finish 🙌#F1 #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/MjFWQBesIR

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 5, 2025

All to say that the Miami GP was a very exciting affair throughout its 57-lap duration, despite the fact that Piastri checked out to an insurmountable lead and pulled teammate Norris along with him, showing that McLaren, having now won five of the first six rounds, are clearly the benchmark for this season and the odds-on favorite to win a second consecutive Constructors’ title. The rest of the field, however, scratched and clawed their way to the finish line in a sign of growing parity between teams not outfitted in Papaya orange. Russell was able to deny the last step on the podium from Verstappen and secure P3 after taking advantage of another VSC period on Lap 29 to make a cheap pit stop and thereby getting the track position drop on the Dutchman. While Red Bull protested that Russell had failed to lift sufficiently during the yellow flags prior, the stewards rejected that contention post-race, and Russell kept his third podium finish of what has so far been a very good season for him. A resigned Verstappen remained in P4 at the conclusion despite the pole start, while Williams’ Albon bested Antonelli, P5 to P6, an excellent result for both Albon and the rapidly improving Williams team. It was still an fine weekend for young Kimi, the Italian driver having taken pole for the Sprint race and qualified P3 for the Grand Prix, if not quite getting the same results in the races themselves.

Swapping positions 🔄

Ferrari were left wanting more in Miami 👇#F1 #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/93m7cmKr38

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 5, 2025

Ferrari had both a disheartening and contentious day in the saddle in Miami, with Charles Leclerc only able to elevate himself to P7 after a P8 start and Lewis Hamilton working very hard to get up to a P8 finish after a poor qualifying saw the seven-time champ start from a lowly P12 on the grid. Despite the desultory results, there was a lot of spicy team friction during the race, as Hamilton lambasted the pit wall’s perceived indecision in deciding when and where to swap the Prancing Horses after another VSC period on Laps 28-29 to take advantage of Hamilton’s then-fresher Medium Pirelli tires versus Leclerc’s Hards. While the decision was eventually made to swap the positions, and after Hamilton scathingly suggested the engineers should just have a tea break for a think, the life in Hamilton’s tires had been wasted and the opportunities for further gains agains the P6 Antonelli evaporated. The disgruntled Scuderia duo were eventually obliged to swap back and the rest of us viewers were left to wish to be a fly on the wall during the post-race Ferrari debrief.

The second Williams of Carlos Sainz gave it his all, including a feisty late race showdown with Hamilton, en route to a solid P9 finish. And Yuki Tsunoda scored for Red Bull for the second race in a row by taking P10 despite a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pits on his one and only Lap 27 stop.

Top 10 finishers of the Miami GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in a fortnight with a trip to the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, better known as Imola, for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in the bucolic heart of Italy. Can McLaren retain their sheer dominance at a very different circuit from Miami, or will Red Bull and Verstappen retake the initiative after a few weeks of fine tuning? And can Ferrari get on the same page and achieve a better result in the year’s first visit to their home country? Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!