2026 Miami Grand Prix Sprint Review

Linus O'Howell
4 days ago
3 min read

Norris Takes McLaren’s First Victory of 2026

Lando Norris took his first victory of 2026, dominating to win the Sprint in Miami! McLaren clearly look back, with Oscar Piastri completing a 1-2 for the team, whilst Charles Leclerc rounded out the Sprint Podium!

A Lot of Gaps

Once again, a 2026 Race start saw Andrea Kimi Antonelli lose a number of positions, as Lando Norris led Oscar Piastri down into Turn 1! Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, and Pierre Gasly all came super close to wiping one another out, with Verstappen getting super aggressive, whilst Charles Leclerc was having to hold off Kimi Antonelli! The Top 3 would then quickly pull away, leading to George Russell hunting down Antonelli, a battle that the young Italian would eventually win (or so we thought)! Verstappen and Hamilton were then going at it again, with Max needing to give the place back after overtaking off track! However, in a very similar way to Saudi Arabia 2021, both drivers lost time after they tactically played to be in the right position to get the Overtake Mode enabled! Honestly, other than that, not much happened in this Sprint, with the gaps being quite large! There were some great battles in the lower positions, with Isack Hadjar pulling off a great move around the outside of Franco Colapinto, whilst Leclerc failed at his attempt to overtake Piastri for P2! Oh, and after the Sprint was over, Andrea Kimi Antonelli was handed a 5-second time penalty for exceeding track limits, a completely needless penalty that dropped him from 4th to 6th (and more importantly, behind his teammate/early Championship Rival)!

The Highs and Lows of the Sprint

I’ve given out two 10’s for today’s Sprint, and the first one is obviously for Lando Norris! I basically didn’t mention Lando at all in my recap of the Sprint, but that’s simply because he was so dominant that we didn’t even see him! Fair play! The other driver I’ve given out maximum points to is Pierre Gasly, and of course I have; he finished best of the rest again! Oscar Piastri also did a good job to once again finish second, whilst Max Verstappen earned his first Top 5 finish of the season!

On the other end of the spectrum, I once again haven’t given out a single 1 for the 2026 Miami Sprint, and that’s mostly because no one crashed! Yes, Aston Martin and Cadillac are both slow, but we’re used to that by now, whilst Alex Albon was only down in P19 due to a forced front wing change (for reasons that I don’t know)! It’s also worth mentioning that neither Nico Hulkenberg nor Arvid Lindblad started this Sprint, with more issues for Audi!