Ferrari’s unusually large 11-piece upgrade package for the Miami Grand Prix backfired, exposing engineering, strategy and race-execution shortcomings and failing to translate into pace or podiums. The package was intended to close the gap to Mercedes and mount a championship challenge, but commentator James Hinchcliffe said Ferrari had broken “the number one rule of engineering,” arguing that too many simultaneous changes undermined the car. Ferrari collected just 22 points across the sprint weekend, and the technical package, while drawing attention and unsettling rivals, did not deliver the expected gains.

On track the evidence was mixed. Charles Leclerc qualified third with a 1’28.143 lap and Ferrari were the fourth-fastest team overall, but McLaren and Red Bull made larger performance gains across the weekend. Scorching track temperatures made tire overheating and tire management a larger differentiator than aero or power-unit tweaks. Ferrari’s race was compromised by contact, suboptimal strategy calls, traffic and a late spin. Leclerc was pitted early to counter a potential undercut, dropped into traffic, recovered to pass George Russell and Max Verstappen, then spun on worn tires and clipped the barriers. He crossed the line sixth on the road and was later demoted to eighth after a time penalty.

Team principal Fred Vasseur acknowledged positives such as good starts and aspects of the upgrades, but said the team must improve consistency, traffic management and its ability to fully extract the car’s potential. Analysts and one report argued Ferrari’s recurring weakness in in-race strategic decision-making resurfaced and likely cost what might have been a podium. By contrast McLaren appeared to cope best with the heat, closing the gap to Mercedes according to McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, who called Mercedes “the team to beat” and said McLaren missed a possible victory through execution errors including pit-stop timing and a slow in-lap. The weekend left open questions about which teams had genuinely improved and which simply adapted best to Miami’s extreme conditions, and showed Ferrari must fix operational issues before development brings consistent race success.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli completed a third straight Grand Prix victory in a drama-filled Miami finale, taking the 2026 Miami Grand Prix at the Miami International Autodrome after 57 laps in 1:33:19.273. Antonelli started from pole and held off late pressure from Lando Norris to win by 3.264 seconds, with Oscar Piastri third, George Russell fourth and Max Verstappen fifth.

The race ended in last-lap drama, including a late spin by Charles Leclerc and a sequence that left both Leclerc and Russell limping home. Several drivers retired after on-track incidents, with Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson among the non-finishers, Pierre Gasly flipping after contact, and Nico Hülkenberg stopping with technical problems.

The result moved Antonelli to the top of the drivers’ standings, and reports place his lead over teammate George Russell at the top of the table, with some sources citing margins up to 20 points.

Drivers at the Miami Grand Prix said the tweaks tested there did not eliminate battery-influenced superclipping, excessive closing speeds or problematic overtaking, and they called for further technical fixes. Lando Norris urged the sport to “get rid of the battery,” saying the measures were only a small step in the right direction. All three podium finishers, Kimi Antonelli, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, delivered a blunt assessment that the changes were incremental rather than a complete solution and said the situation “isn’t at the level Formula 1 should still be at yet.”

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri described the wheel-to-wheel racing in Miami as “random,” saying frequent position changes with Mercedes’ George Russell were driven by differing energy-harvesting and deployment patterns and by variable availability of Overtake Mode. Piastri cited Russell closing from roughly one second to make a straight-line overtake as an example of the large closing speeds that make defending extremely difficult. He said he had been unhappy with one of Russell’s moves but later acknowledged he had executed a similar maneuver himself. Piastri praised cooperation between the FIA and F1 on the tweaks and said the reduced harvest limit in qualifying has helped a bit, but he warned current hardware limits mean more substantive fixes would require complex technical work and questioned how quickly such changes could be implemented.

Norris said the tweaks had not yet produced the flat-out qualifying laps the sport needs and complained that drivers remain penalized when trying to go flat-out. The Miami changes included a reduction in recoverable energy in qualifying, kept at eight megajoules for Miami and Suzuka, and an increase in the on-throttle energy recovery rate intended to discourage battery-recharge tactics and reduce lift-and-coast.

Antonelli, the Miami winner who extended his early championship lead with a third consecutive victory, agreed qualifying felt better but warned that closing speeds, active aero and battery characteristics still pose major race concerns. Drivers and teams remain skeptical that the tweaks fully address overtaking and wheel-to-wheel stability and called for further power-unit and deployment fixes after the opening three rounds prompted the adjustments.

Lewis Hamilton’s Miami Grand Prix was compromised by a first-lap collision with Franco Colapinto at Turn 11, which damaged his car’s floor and a sidepod. Team telemetry confirmed the floor and sidepod damage, and race engineer Carlo Santi estimated a 10–15 point loss of downforce. Hamilton told his team he had “lost the left side,” described himself as “just a passenger,” and later apologized on the radio, saying “Sorry about the damage.” He estimated the incident cost about half a second and said it left him unable to compete for the lead and ruined his race pace.

The incident came during a chaotic opening lap in which Max Verstappen spun at Turn 2 and forced Hamilton wide into Colapinto’s path, with the contact then occurring at Turn 11. Reports differed on which sidepod was hit; some accounts said the left sidepod was damaged, while another reported damage to the right-hand sidepod. The lap-one damage hampered Hamilton’s pace across the weekend despite work to improve the car for qualifying, and he called the weekend “one to forget.” He crossed the line seventh on the road in Sunday’s race and had also been seventh in the Sprint.

Ferrari brought significant upgrades to the SF-26 and Charles Leclerc led early, only to be passed after the safety-car restart. Accounts varied on Leclerc’s final classification: some reports recorded him finishing sixth and scoring eight points, while others said he hit the wall on the final lap and then received a 20-second penalty for leaving the track repeatedly, a penalty that promoted Hamilton to sixth. Hamilton repeatedly complained about a continuing lack of power linked to the internal combustion engine and restricted access to electrical energy, an issue he had raised in Japan five weeks earlier and which he said made on-track battles harder. Several reports framed Hamilton’s result as the consequence of the early contact rather than a true reflection of the team’s pace, and he and the team said they would regroup and aim to extract more performance at the next race.

McLaren said a pit-timing error cost Lando Norris victory at the Miami Grand Prix. Lando Norris said, “We just got undercut,” and team principal Andrea Stella accepted the mistake as the decisive factor.

Norris led large portions of the race in a heavily upgraded McLaren, but Mercedes pitted Kimi Antonelli earlier and executed an effective undercut, helped by a strong out-lap, that put Antonelli back ahead and on to victory. Stella said pitting earlier “probably” would have retained the lead, and Norris called the loss “gutted,” adding “no excuses other than that.”

Pierre Gasly flipped and Isack Hadjar crashed out of the Miami Grand Prix, incidents that together forced an early safety car and disrupted the race’s opening phase.

Accounts differ on the precise timing. Some reports said the incidents occurred on lap 6, and one report placed Gasly’s flip on lap 5, but all sources agree the two crashes happened close together.

Gasly’s Alpine flipped into the tire barrier at Turn 17 after contact with Liam Lawson, who lunged down the inside while Gasly was contesting Williams’ Alex Albon. The car came to rest on top of the barrier and Gasly quickly reported he was OK and uninjured. Hadjar also crashed out.

Max Verstappen said Red Bull’s sudden performance turnaround at the Miami Grand Prix stemmed as much from a repaired steering system as from aerodynamic upgrades. He described a complete overhaul of the steering assembly, including replacement of the steering rack and supporting components after tracing the fault back to the Barcelona test, and said the fix let him “steer normally” again rather than feel like “a passenger.” The mechanical repair, found during F1’s enforced five-week break, combined with the aero package to restore his comfort, confidence and competitive pace.

The aerodynamic package fitted over the break included Red Bull’s interpretation of Ferrari’s “Macarena” rear wing, revised sidepods, a fresh floor and refinements to the engine cover and exhaust to stabilize airflow. The updates and the steering repair together made the RB22 “feel more together,” and Verstappen said the team had “almost halved” the deficit to the leaders and called the recovery “incredible.”

The on-track effect showed in Miami: Verstappen qualified on the front row, P2 and 0.166 seconds behind pole, and finished fifth in the Sprint, though he and team bosses acknowledged remaining weaknesses in the high-speed first sector and on race starts. Red Bull carried out much of the testing and fitting work during the five-week pause, and Sky Sports commentators said the car was starting to behave as he expected and suggested the changes could spark a resurgence. Red Bull is also preparing for internal staff changes, including the previously announced 2028 departure of long-time race engineer GianPiero Lambiase, as the team builds on the Miami improvements ahead of Sunday’s race.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem confirmed Formula 1 plans to return to V8 engines, with the FIA targeting 2030 for implementation. “It’s coming,” he told media, and he said votes by teams and power‑unit manufacturers led the FIA to set 2030 as the target.

Ben Sulayem described the proposed V8 generation as lighter, cheaper, simpler and producing a louder sound favored by purist fans. He said the design would feature only “very, very minor electrification” and run on sustainable fuels, and the FIA says the move will reduce technical complexity, restore more engine‑driven power and boost road‑car relevance after the era that included the MGU‑H.

Current F1 power units are turbocharged 1.6‑litre V6 hybrids that use only the MGU‑K, with recent regulations having shifted roughly half the power to electrical hybrid systems. The proposed rules would shift emphasis back toward combustion power. Ben Sulayem explicitly ruled out a return to V10 engines and noted F1 previously used V8s from 2006 through 2013. He said the FIA could try to accelerate the change and warned that once the 2031 regulation cycle begins the FIA would have the authority to impose the switch even without manufacturers’ votes. Power‑unit manufacturers could try to delay any shift before 2031 via a supermajority. Manufacturers such as Ferrari, Mercedes, Audi and Cadillac were cited as having road‑car relevance to V8s; GM president Mark Reuss has said Cadillac intends to be a factory works team by the end of the decade. McLaren’s Andrea Stella cautioned that meaningful hardware changes are unlikely before 2028. The FIA says official confirmation of the plan is expected soon.