After a month without racing, Formula 1 returns this weekend for the Miami Grand Prix.
It’s been long enough that it almost feels as though the season is starting all over again — and with fresh rule changes and with major upgrades expected for all teams, the form guide could change significantly when rubber hits the road in Florida.
Teams won’t have long to hone their new packages, however.
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Miami is a sprint weekend, meaning there’s just one practice session on Friday (Saturday AEST) before sprint qualifying.
In recognition of the length of the break, of the rule changes and of the expected major upgrades, this practice session has been extended by half an hour, to 90 minutes.
That won’t be enough time to make an assessment on whether the much-hyped rule changes have fixed the formula. In fact this entire weekend is unlikely to give us a concrete answer.
A sample size of one circuit was never going to be big enough, but the Miami layout, with its big braking zones and few fast corners, was always going to be one of the more favourable tracks for the 2026 power unit. The odds were that we would have had a relatively inoffensive weekend even without the regulation changes. The bigger tests are still to come.
PIT TALK PODCAST: McLaren will bring an all-new car to the Miami Grand Prix this weekend. Can it take Oscar Piastri to back-to-back wins in Florida? Listen to Pit Talk now >
But the saga of F1’s 2026 regulations will run as a background narrative all season and perhaps for many years.
On the track there’s a championship to win, and the front of the field has taken a fascinating shape early in the season.
Alex Marquez wins as Marc crashes out | 01:40
ANTONELLI’S RISE OBSCURES RUSSELL TITLE CHANCE
The calling off of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian grands prix gave Andrea Kimi Antonelli a chance to soak in his history-making championship lead.
Victory in Japan at the end of March took Antonelli ahead of teammate George Russell to the top of the title table. At 19 years old, he’s the youngest driver ever to lead the world championship — and he’s been there for more than a month now.
But the extended bragging rights is more of a consolation prize. For Antonelli, whose performance at Suzuka — pole, win and fastest lap — was comfortably the most complete of his career, the four weekends without a race risk breaking his stride.
“With the cancellation, it was not the best, because when you have such a momentum, you just want to keep going,” he told the Mercedes Silver Arrows Radio Show podcast.
“You don’t want to stop; we just want to be back strong and rebuild the momentum in order to be able to carry it for the rest of the season.
“The goal is to be back from where we left off or [do] even better. I’ve been trying to work hard physical side, prepare, there’s a lot of preparation ahead of Miami.”
Equally important is how Russell has used his break.
Talk this season is about the Briton’s chance to make good on his abilities after years without the car to do the business. Antonelli’s rise, if it continues, will have him facing some tough questions.
“To be honest, it doesn’t change anything for me,” he told CNN.
“Kimi is a fantastic driver, and we battled one another all throughout last year — of course that was his first year, but I already got a very good glimpse of how talented and fast he was throughout last year.
“The start of this year for him has been a perfect dream start to the season, but from my side, I know what I’m capable of, and no championship has ever been won over three races.”
If Mercedes domination is to continue — and that’s a big if — at least the rivalry between its drivers could still turn this season into a thriller.
Marc Marquez goes off in a HUGE crash | 00:39
PIASTRI HAS FAITH McLAREN CAN CONTEND IN 2026
Momentum swung subtly but decisively from Ferrari to McLaren over the first three races of the season. As every team understood more profoundly their 2026 cars and engines, McLaren made greater strides than the Scuderia to walk away from Japan having come achingly close to victory as Mercedes’s closest challenger.
The sample size is small, but the results are heartening for the defending constructors champion.
That’s particularly good news for McLaren fans given the car we’ve seen so far is explicitly not the best the team can do.
McLaren has been consistent since January that the car that would appear in pre-season testing and run in the opening rounds would be a basic version used to validate its philosophy and understand the engine. The bells-and-whistles version that would kickstart development is due in Miami.
“There was always the idea to deliver a completely new car, especially from an aerodynamic upgrades point of view, for the North American races,” Andrea Stella said.
“Across Miami and Canada, we will see an entirely new MCL40.”
Of course every team will bring substantial upgrades to this weekend’s race given the month without racing and given it’s so early in this regulatory cycle.
But McLaren has form in game-changing upgrades.
It was at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix that the team delivered a massive upgrade that turned its car from a languishing midfielder into a winner with Lando Norris that weekend. The team spent the rest of the season as a regular podium contender.
Last year it was similarly in the run of races after Miami that McLaren was at its most dominant before turning attention to 2026.
McLaren has been in this situation before and proved it can succeed.
“I’m confident in this team that we’ll be back fighting consistently for wins this season,” Piastri said.
“Closing the gap to Mercedes and out-developing the field is something that’s within our control.
“This team have proven how we’re able to turn things around, and we’re starting in a stronger position than we have in previous examples of this, such as 2024.
“I have complete trust that the team will do everything they can to get us there, and I am genuinely excited to see what we can achieve.”
Piastri also has form in Miami — he came close to taking his maiden win here in 2024, and he was outstanding en route to victory around Hard Rock Stadium this time last year.
But if the comeback is on this season, McLaren will need to demonstrate some momentum from this weekend.
Agius sets sights on MotoGP debut | 04:19
VERSTAPPEN’S QUIT THREAT LINGERS
When Formula 1 left Suzuka on the eve of its big break, there was only one story worth talking about: Max Verstappen’s explicit threat to quit Formula 1.
In a candid interview with the BBC, Verstappen outlined his unhappiness with the direction of the series under these new regulations and his serious consideration of a sabbatical or early retirement to pursue other racing interests.
“You just think about: is it worth it, or do I enjoy being more at home with my family [or] seeing my friends more when you’re not enjoying your sport?” he said.
The situation certainly wouldn’t have been helped by news that his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, will leave the team no later than the end of 2027 to join McLaren. Verstappen likely would have known about Lambiase’s plan before Japan, meaning it’s already priced into his pessimism.
Red Bull Racing has denied that Verstappen has been discussing a potential exit, but The Race has reported the team is pulling out all the stops to keep him to stay, including bringing him into an event to welcome new staff to the factory in a bid to show him that talent is flowing into Milton Keynes as quickly as it’s escaping.
More important, though, is that the FIA has confirmed regulatory tweaks aimed at addressing some of Verstappen’s criticisms by making the cars more conventional to drive in qualifying and smoothing some of the rough edges in race trim.
Verstappen’s response to these changes will be telling, but only to an extent.
“For this year it will be tiny little changes that doesn’t really make a big difference,” he said in Japan. “I just hope that the changes are big enough for next year.”
The modified rules perhaps can be seen as an article of faith, but Verstappen wants to see is progress on talk that more significant hardware changes will be made next year. Consensus appears to be forming around boosting combustion power and possibly detuning the electrical motor to create a power unit that drives much more like last year’s model.
His optimism — or pessimism — about the sport over the next few months could be a barometer for how well those discussions are going.
Meanwhile, though Verstappen has denied that his unhappiness is connected to Red Bull Racing’s form slump, there’s no doubt he’d be enjoying himself at least a little more if the team were closer to the front.
Like every constructor, RBR is expected to bring a major upgrade to this weekend’s race. The test isn’t so much whether it can close the gap instantly but rather whether the upgrade works at all. For years now Red Bull Racing has been hit and miss with its update packages and has often found itself down developmental dead-ends.
You’d have to think another fizzer would leave Verstappen with many more doubts about his future with the team — and in the sport.
Unpacking new F1 rule changes | 04:46
WHAT’S THE WEATHER DOING?
Miami could have what might be the dubious honour of really stress testing these cars in hot and wet conditions.
With Bahrain and Saudi Arabia having been called off, the 2026 breed hasn’t been raced in truly hot weather. Miami’s tropical climate is forecast to bring sunny and typically suffocating conditions to most of the race weekend. It will challenge the drivers, as always, but it will put these new engines in particular through their paces.
In Bahrain during pre-season testing, for example, we saw many cars with bodywork plucked off to maximise cooling. Every extra hole opened in the bodywork comes at the expense of aerodynamic performance.
Will every team have built in enough cooling options for these sorts of races? Those that haven’t will find out the hard way, with only one practice session to figure it out before sprint qualifying.
Bright skies will dominate Friday and Saturday, but the story looks completely different for Sunday, at least at this stage, when the forecast is for thunderstorms and heavy rain beginning at around race time.
There was one rainy day during pre-season testing, which most teams opted to skip. Those that ran that day completed few laps which anyway will be of little value this weekend given how much time has passed.
Of course racing in the wet is nothing out of the ordinary in Formula 1, but there have been brewing concerns about the way these engines deliver their power in low-grip conditions that have prompted the FIA to pre-emptively make rule changes for wet running.
The biggest change is that the boost button — the button that gives drivers instant access to all 350 kilowatts of electrical power — has been banned in wet sessions.
This means the sort of power differences that have come to define this era won’t be possible in the wet on both safety and driveability grounds.
Cars also won’t be able to open their rear wings down the straights when it’s raining, though their front wings will still move to reduce drag.
On every front this will be a step into the unknown for these new cars.
There is one further possible complication.
The law in Miami requires sporting events to be suspended in the event of nearby lightning or thunder, even going so far as to recommend events be postponed if the forecast is for thunderstorms.
If lightning can be seen nearby, official guidance is for all people to seek shelter. If the race were running, it would mean a red flag. If the race is yet to start, it would be delayed.
Guidance further states that an event should wait until 30 minutes after the last thunderclap to resume activity.
Forecasts are liable to change still so far out from Sunday, but it could end up being quite a complicated afternoon in Miami.
Mostert and Kostecki rivalry gets heated | 08:45
HOW CAN I WATCH IT?
You can watch the 2026 Miami Grand Prix live and ad-break-free during racing on Fox Sports and Kayo.
Saturday
Free practice: 2:00am (AEST)
Sprint qualifying: 6:30am
Sunday
Sprint race: 2:00am
Grand prix qualifying: 6:00am
Monday
Miami Grand Prix: 6:00am