Miami Sprint: McLaren dominates with Norris and Piastri ahead of Leclerc as Antonelli takes penalty. McLaren breaks Mercedes' dominance in the Miami Sprint as Lando Norris leads a 1-2 finish.

For now, Miami is proving to be a theater of surprises. After missing out on pole position yesterday for the first time this season, Mercedes’ dominance has also been broken in race conditions. In the United States Sprint, it wasn’t one of the two W17s leading the pack, but McLaren, delivering a 1-2 finish that represents a fundamental milestone in their journey to consistently return to the top of the grid.

This was a significant double victory, both technically and for team morale, with Lando Norris emerging as the absolute winner. Norris was impeccable in maintaining the lead at the start after launching from pole position. The Briton managed the situation with clarity from the opening meters, steadily pulling away from his teammate lap after lap and extending his margin to around three seconds by the midpoint of the race.

While the race held no major surprises for Norris, the nineteen laps of the Sprint offered a few more moments of tension for Oscar Piastri. The Australian had to keep Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari at bay in the closing stages when the Monegasque driver managed to close the gap to under a second—at least before rear tire overheating stripped him of his decisive spark.

Despite attempting to close in after the halfway point and moving into the DRS window, Leclerc never truly became a threat or attempted an overtakes. He even made a slight mistake a few laps before the checkered flag. Consequently, another third place arrives for the Scuderia, continuing a streak of results that has seen the SF-26 on the podium throughout this early part of the season, Sprints included.

Mercedes struggles in the Florida heat

In contrast, the race was far more complex for Mercedes, who had already shown yesterday that they hadn’t hit the ideal window to extract the maximum from the W17. While Kimi Antonelli managed to patch things over in qualifying with a great final lap, everything crumbled quickly in the race. At the start, despite work done during the break, the Italian failed to be incisive off the line, immediately losing several positions and sliding from second to fourth, falling behind Leclerc.

In the opening laps, Antonelli tried to stay attached to and duel with the Ferrari driver, but over the long distance, pace difficulties emerged—a true novelty for Mercedes in this championship opening. In the elevated temperatures of Miami, the W17 did not shine; instead, it began to slide progressively further from the leading trio, ultimately finishing nearly nine seconds behind Norris.

Adding to the difficulties of the track was a five-second penalty for exceeding the allowed track limits, with the final infringement occurring while he was under no pressure from his teammate. This sanction dropped him from fourth to sixth place, costing him two championship points to George Russell.

Things went no better for his teammate, who tried to pressure and overtake Antonelli around the midpoint of the race without success, before losing contact and finishing nearly four seconds behind the Italian. So far, the weekend is offering little satisfaction for the Three-Pointed Star, with Russell clearly suffering from a lack of incisiveness in high-speed corners where the tires tend to slide and the W17 struggles to stay in the ideal window.

In the finale, the Briton had to manage a late charge from Max Verstappen, who closed to within a second of the Mercedes on the final lap but found no room to overtake. The Dutchman had spent much of the race engaged in a duel with the other Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton, finishing in fifth place (thanks to Antonelli’s penalty). While not an eye-popping result, it represents a small step forward in his journey to leave the mid-pack behind and return to the front-running battle.

Hamilton himself finished seventh, complaining at the end of the Sprint about a lack of grip and power. Completing the points-paying positions—which for the Sprint are limited to the top eight—was Pierre Gasly in the first of the two Alpines.

In summary, the Miami Sprint highlighted a shifting competitive landscape as McLaren’s dominant 1-2 finish ended Mercedes’ early-season streak, while Ferrari maintained its consistent podium presence despite straight-line speed challenges.