Kimi Antonelli has beaten Max Verstappen by over a tenth and a half to take pole position for the Miami Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver was the only driver to improve on the final runs, setting a 27.98 to take his third consecutive Grand Prix pole. Antonelli, who has won the last two races, looked to continue Mercedes’ strong start to the season.
Although an error at the start of his final lap meant he missed the chance to improve his time, Antonelli still ended up just under two tenths clear of Verstappen in second and three tenths clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in third. Antonelli was still comfortably faster than the Red Bull and Ferrari, whose final attempts were two and three-tenths slower than the lead Mercedes, respectively.
The Italian has changed the perceived narrative going into this season, matching and regularly beating his more experienced teammate George Russell, which could put him as a more serious rival for the championship. Russell only managed fifth as he went four tenths off his teammate.
Leclerc put his Ferrari third, but the Monacan was nearly two tenths behind the top two as he held off Lando Norris and Russell, who both lapped with in half a tenth of the Ferrari. Norris is going a hundredth and a half ahead of Russell, but there will be questions about a power unit issue during Q2 for the world champion, which disrupted his ability to build momentum into Q3.
Russell appeared to struggle again compared to his teammate, four tenths off from the Italian, who follows in the footsteps of Ayrton Senna, on the weekend which marks the thirty-second anniversary of his death in Antonelli’s home race at Imola, and seven-time champion Michael Schumacher by taking the first three GP poles of his career in succession.
The weekend has also been overshadowed, as always, not only by the deaths of Senna and Roland Ratezenberger thirty-two years ago, but also by the death yesterday of former F1 driver and two-time Paralympic cycling champion Alex Zanardi, who died yesterday aged fifty-nine.
Lewis Hamilton put his Ferrari sixth, going over a tenth and three-quarters faster than Oscar Piastri. The seven-time champion went into qualifying having made set-up changes to his car. McLaren experienced what Norris labelled a “reality check” as the Sprint polesitters and one-two victors slipped to fourth place with the world champion and seventh with Oscar Piastri.
The big question in Japan was whether Mercedes would remain the team to beat after the unscheduled break in April caused by the war in Iran, the six weeks of development time and what impact the tweaks to the regulations would have. But it appears that the reset has created a championship where the gap has been reduced to half a second.
Franco Colapinto was the best of the rest behind the majority of the top four teams, putting his Alpine eighth as he went a quarter of a second faster than Isack Hadjar. The French-Algerian driver, splitting the Alpines as he went two hundredths faster than his French compatriot Pierre Gasly, as they completed the top ten.
After failing to start the sprint after his Audi caught fire, Nico Hulkenberg put himself eleventh as he missed out on Q3 by just over three and a half tenths. The German is six hundredths ahead of Liam Lawson, with Ollie Bearman seven hundredths behind.
Carlos Sainz put his Williams between the Haas duo; he was a thousandth behind the Englishman and ahead of Esteban Ocon by four thousandths. While Alex Albon was left frustrated by his best effort, which left him seven hundredths behind and slowest in Q2.
Arvid Lindblad was the fastest of those knocked out in Q1; the Englishman nearly caused what could have been the biggest surprise of qualifying. The Racing Bull driver nearly knocked out Piastri, only for the lap time to fall away and him to miss out by just over a tenth. But the Racing Bulls rookie couldn’t quite find enough improvement.
Fernando Alonso was nearly seven hundredths faster than his Aston Martin teammate, Lance Stroll. They were both nearly half a second ahead of the Cadillac duo of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez. Bortoleto did get out, but his only timed lap was nearly two seconds slower than Perez’s.
Related
- Miami GP – Sprint Result
- MIAMI GP – Lando Norris beats Oscar Piastri by four seconds to win the sprint
- Miami GP – Sprint Qualifying Result
- MIAMI GP – Lando Norris beats Kimi Antonelli by two tenths to take sprint pole
- MIAMI GP – Charles Leclerc fastest from Max Verstappen by three tenths in practice
- Welcome to the Miami Grand Prix – 30/04/2026
- PRIXVIEW – Miami Grand Prix
