Round 04 | Miami

"We have taken an important step forward""We have taken an important step forward"

Fernando finished in P15 with Lance in P17 as the Formula One season resumed with the Miami Grand Prix. Read on for all the reaction from the team trackside in Florida.

The Grand Prix began at 13:00 local time, having been brought forward three hours to avoid forecasted heavy storms at the original start time.
Despite torrential rain earlier in the morning, our drivers took to the grid in dry conditions, both starting on the Medium tyre compound.
After lights out, an early Safety Car period was called as Isack Hadjar had an off, while Pierre Gasly and Liam Lawson came together in a separate incident, with the field bunching up. Neither driver took to the pits.
Lance made his first stop on Lap 20, taking on a set of Soft tyres. He would pit again for another set of Softs on Lap 37.
Fernando, meanwhile, went longer and pitted on Lap 41, also taking the Soft tyre.
At the chequered flag, Fernando crossed the line in P15, with Lance in P17.
Earlier in the day, Driver Academy member Mari Boya took P7 in the F2 Feature Race, expertly navigating tricky wet conditions to carve his way into the points.
The team's focus now moves up the Eastern Seabord and over the border to Montréal for the Canadian Grand Prix in three weeks.

THE LATEST FROM THE TRACK

Welcome to Magic City

Sweeping around the imposing Hard Rock Stadium, the Miami Grand Prix is a modern showpiece event on the F1 calendar. It is loud, it is crowded, it is impossible to move, and the garages offer the only sanctuary of calm to be found amid the whirl of music, fashion, art and food. The challenging, 19-turn, purpose-built temporary circuit provides the stage for a Sprint weekend in the 305.

Some people come to the Miami International Autodrome to watch the race, while others come to just watch each other. If you want to kick back under a big umbrella, watching F1 while nonchalantly sipping a Glenfiddich Orchard Experiment Pomonatini from a coupette glass, then this is definitely the race for you, but for the former category, the track around the Hard Rock Stadium really is spectacular, offering equal opportunity for spectacular overtaking and colossal drama. What the enormous torque of this new era of F1 cars makes of it is going to be very interesting to discover – though we'll have considerably less time than usual to find out, as the F1 Sprint returns for its second appearance of 2026.

This isn't entirely the weekend as originally planned. The singular practice session has been extended to 90 minutes, to allow teams a little more time to adapt to a tweaked set of rules regarding energy recovery, while it's a considerably busier weekend on track, with Formula 2 given a Miami, and indeed, North American, debut. Mari Boya will be back in action for the first time since the Australian Grand Prix weekend back at the start of March, hoping to kickstart his campaign in Florida.

RACE STARTS IN:

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Miami is an absolute vibe. It's a great circuit that's got a bit of everything.

Jessica Hawkins – Driver Ambassador & Head of F1 ACADEMY

Number of corners
19
Number of laps
57
Race distance
308.326km

NEED TO KNOW: MIAMI GP

THE CIRCUIT

THE GRAND PRIX

THE STRATEGY

THE FACTS

THE TRAVEL GUIDE

Miami GP race page - last time out carousel

LAST TIME OUT IN MIAMI

THE CIRCUIT

The Miami International Autodrome isn't a street circuit and it isn't a permanent road course; instead it occupies a nebulous middle ground, being a purpose-built circuit, incorporating elements of a street grid, and designed to be rapidly constructed and disassembled. The walls are close, the grip is… variable and the challenge is extreme.

The 19-turn circuit tests cars at both ends of the speed range – deliberately so to ensure teams have tricky decisions to make. There's a kilometre-plus full-throttle sections between T8-T11 and T16-T17, but the high-speed section that really catches the eye comes in the first sector, with a sequence of sweepers that exists on the boundary between being grip- and power-limited, really pushing F1 cars to their limit.

It certainly isn't all high-speed though, with the bigger gains and losses in lap-time to be found in the slower corners – particularly the stadium section between T11-T16 where the track negotiates its way around and below the Turnpike interchange. Unusual for a low-speed section of track, it's been the sight of several red flags in previous years, with drivers losing control over the kerbs and discovering there really isn't any margin for error.

If this slow section is all about lap-time, then the hairpin at the end of the backstraight, and the tight first corner are all about attack and defence. Miami International Autodrome features three DRS zones, the first, on the sinuous 'straight' into T11 is a one-shot deal, but the second and third, into the T17 hairpin, and then along the start-finish straight are more of a combination: similar to Jeddah last time out, anyone who doesn't get the move done – or decides to hold fire – into T17 gets another shot into T1. It makes for quite a bit of action, and no small amount of wheel-banging.

THE GRAND PRIX

The Miami Grand Prix offers a fine-tuned spectator-friendly experience, really not like anywhere else. It makes it a very busy week for the teams, who split their efforts between events downtown or out at South Beach, and the action at the track. The circuit is built in the parking lot of the Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins.

It isn't the first time F1 has raced on a US parking lot – but this is light-years away from the Caesars Palace Grand Prix of the early 1980s, and is described by its architects as a 'temporary permanent race course' – the idea being the track can be rapidly assembled and disassembled around the grand prix, allowing best use of the multi-purpose site, which also hosts NFL games, rock concerts and the Miami Open tennis tournament.

It means F1 gets access to excellent facilities. The teams' hospitality units are now housed within the stadium, and the Grand Prix sells tickets for the stadium seats, allowing spectators to people-watch, and even stay within the confines to watch the track action on the giant screens.

There are many better views, however. The circuit is divided into eight themed spectator zones, with 10 bridges – more than any other circuit – connecting the various zones, and all featuring activations and facilities. The circuit announced an intense foodie programme in 2025, featuring 65 local and international restaurants, with more than a few Michelin-starred chefs at work.

The eye-catching super yacht 'marina', is to be found at the long, multi-apex Turn Eight, while the Stadium Section – not to be confused with the actual stadium – at the other end of the circuit features The Beach Club, complete with swimming pools and cabanas. That's also where the stage is to be found, with musical guests over the weekend including Pitbull, Kygo, Tiësto, Kaskade, Sofi Tukker and Cedric Gervais.

There was also an auction in 2025, with a display of 38 cars on the Promenade. Star of the show is a championship-winning Brawn 001 from 2009, but for those with a little less room in the garage – and the wallet – there's an array of race-worn helmets, overalls and assorted F1 paraphernalia.

Where's the best place to watch? It really does depend what you want to see. The party will be down at the beach; F1 cars doing their thing will look spectacular from the Promenade; glamorous selfies will be at the Miami International Autodrome marina and the best overtaking spots can be seen from the West and North Campuses. What we would suggest is choosing a covered grandstand. With temperatures expected to hit 30°C, shade is going to be helpful. If you don't have it, remember to stay well hydrated.

THE STRATEGY

Pirelli has ITS three softest compounds in Miami. The C3, C4 and C5 were also used last year, and while the tyres are a little different in 2026, nothing in the three Grands Prix so far in 2026 has suggested behaviour demonstrably different to that which has gone before. At MIA, that is indicative of a one-stop race, which has been the overwhelming preference in all four Miami Grands Prix to date. Three of the four races have been won with a Medium-Hard strategy, with the outlier being 2023, when Max Verstappen started in ninth and won with the reverse Hard-Medium approach.

The surface here is very smooth, which means what degradation there is, tends to be generated by track temperatures, and while it will undoubtedly be hot this weekend, the track temp oscillates dependent on the level of cloud cover. Last year, deg proved to be manageable, and all 18 finishers did the one-stop race. Lance went with the Medium-Hard approach, pitting on lap 20 of the 57, while Fernando did the opposite, making his stop on lap 28.

An interesting quirk of 2025 is that no-one used a Soft tyre on Sunday. It may come into the reckoning this year, given the tyres have been designed to be a little more robust, and a greater degree of lift-and-coast into the corners is going to protect them a little better. The Sprint functions as a proper, old-school, long run in this regard. If deg is very low across 100km on Saturday, the Soft becomes a more plausible alternative for Sunday.

THE FACTS

1 | Lance started his single-seater career in Florida, contesting the 2014 Florida Winter Series, at Sebring, Palm Beach and Homestead, alongside fellow future F1 drivers Nicholas Latifi and Max Verstappen and future Le Mans winner Antonio Fuoco.

2 | Miami International Autodrome is the second venue in Florida to host a round of the Formula One World Championship, after Sebring hosted the inaugural United States Grand Prix in 1959.

3 | In total, 12 venues in the USA have held F1 races, more than any other country. After Sebring, the United States Grand Prix moved to Riverside in California for 1960, then Watkins Glen (1961-1980), Phoenix (1989-1991), the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (2000-2007) and, currently, the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas (2012 –). The other races are the US Grand Prix West, held at Long Beach (1976-1983), The Caesars Palace Grand Prix (1981-1982), the Detroit Grand Prix (1982-1988), the Dallas Grand Prix (1984) and the Las Vegas Grand Prix (2023 –). The Indy 500 was also classified as a round of the World Championship between 1950-1960, despite featuring no F1 cars and few F1 drivers.

4 | Miami has proven itself as a decent circuit for overtaking. There were 45 successful overtaking moves in 2022, 52 in 2023 and 32 in 2024 – all well above average – but the number dropped to 21 last year, in line with the notion that overtaking was getting harder as the cars matured across the ground-effect era.

5 | The race has yet to be won from the front row. Max Verstappen, starting P3 in 2022 is the winner starting furthest forward. He's also the winner starting furthest back, from P9 the following year – which is also the furthest back from which anyone has finished on the podium

6 | Surprisingly, given the proximity of the walls, the Miami Grand Prix has only generated two full Safety Cars: in 2022 following a collision between Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly, and 2024, when Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant collided. We also saw a VSC in 2024 when Max Verstappen hit, carried and dropped a bollard onto the track, and three separate VSCs last year.

THE TRAVEL GUIDE

What can you do in Miami? Whatever you want, really. Whenever Formula One talked about wanting to move races closer to the fans, the vibrant cityscape of Miami was very much the location they had in mind. Plan A of a downtown race around the Port didn't work out, but Plan B at the Hard Rock Stadium is succeeding beyond everyone's wildest dreams.

It does make this something of a two-centre race, with teams putting on downtown events in the mornings and evenings around visits to the track up in Miami Gardens. The Arts & Entertainments District is popular, but most of the action tends to happen in and around South and Miami Beaches, with their array of stylish art deco restaurants, hotels, exhibition spaces and, of course, sparkling blue sea, yacht-laden marinas, and miles of golden beaches.

There is more to Florida than Miami, and being a standalone race, it's given many in the paddock an opportunity to perhaps arrive a day early or leave a day late and explore. Disneyworld hasn't been top of the list, but many, many golf balls have been hit – though it's a brave golfer prepared to look for a ball at the edge of a water hazard here, given the local wildlife. There have been so many race engineers heading for Cocoa Beach and the John F. Kennedy Space Centre, to see a Saturn V rocket and Space Shuttle Atlantis, Formula One really should have laid on a coach.

This is also a state with a strong racing heritage. The circuits of Sebring, Daytona and Homestead aren't exactly local to Miami International Autodrome, but they're close enough for an excursion… while for anyone wanting to take a break from horsepower, to the south, there's the Everglades (to see the 'gators) and the Florida Keys (to see the sunsets).

Set sail: Home to Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Miami is the ideal place to begin the trip of a lifetime – click here to find your perfect voyage embarking from the cruise capital of the world.

LAST TIME OUT IN MIAMI

We've come away from Miami with something each time we've visited. 2022 was a tough raced with both drivers starting from the pitlane after a fuelling problem. Sebastian Vettel ran a brilliant race to claw his way up to P9 before a collision with Mick Schumacher five laps from home saw him retire the car. Lance came over the line P12, but penalties for Fernando and Daniel Ricciardo saw him promoted post-race to P10. His gap over Fernando in the final race classification was 0.102 seconds – which really does show the value of pushing all the way to the line.

2023 had Fernando starting P2, and finishing P3, in no-man’s land: 20 seconds behind the Red Bulls, comfortably ahead of the Mercedes. He filled in his time watching the race on the big screens, offering the odd moment of commentary. 2024 had the two drivers involved in a first corner collision in the Sprint which put Lance out and Fernando down to last. He made a good recovery in the race to finish P9, running an alternative strategy.

Torrential rain for last year's Sprint caused chaos even before the race began. Once the race got under way, Fernando's early season bad luck continued, begin nerfed-off by Liam Lawson, but Lance – as is often the case in tricky conditions – sailed through to finish P5, having started down in P16. Sadly, neither car could find the pace in dry conditions on Sunday, struggling with the low-grip track to finish P15 and P16.

Your F1, your way

There's more than one way to show up

I / AM is bringing the 305 to life around the Miami Grand Prix through a series of moments made not for the norm, but for now. Click below to discover the moments built for you to explore, feel, and be part of.

BRING YOUR THING

Presented by Arm

The road less travelled with Jessica Hawkins

Before touching down in the 305, Jessica reflects on why talent alone is never enough to reach F1, reveals her ambitions for British GT, and makes a case for a more open sport – one where no driver, team member or fan feels the need to prove they belong.

READ THE INTERVIEW