{"id":643812,"date":"2026-05-02T00:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T00:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643812\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T00:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T00:20:10","slug":"oscar-piastri-third-for-miami-sprint-race-and-lando-norris-on-pole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643812\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri third for Miami Sprint Race and Lando Norris on pole"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 world champion Lando Norris has taken pole position for the Miami Grand Prix sprint race, with Mercedes’s Kimi Antonelli second fastest to deny McLaren a one-two on the starting grid.<\/p>\n

Norris lapped the Hard Rock Stadium with a best time of one minute 27.869 seconds, beating last year’s sprint pole sitter and current title leader by 0.222.<\/p>\n

“It was great. Perfect result and a nice way to reward the team,” Norris said on track.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a lot of new upgrades on the car. It’s nice to feel some grip again.<\/p>\n

“It’s nice to reward the guys and the girls who have put a lot of work into it.<\/p>\n

“It’s a good result for us, but it’s still the beginning of the weekend. [There is] still a long way to go, but it’s nice to kick it off by doing this.”<\/p>\n

Norris is the first driver to deny Mercedes the top spot in a qualifying race this season.<\/p>\n

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri will line up third, just 0.017 seconds behind Antonelli.<\/p>\n

\"Oscar<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri (left) was just pipped for a spot on the front row. (Getty Images: Formula 1\/Mark Sutton)<\/p>\n

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will start alongside the Australian on the second row for the 19-lap race on Saturday, local time.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen pipped George Russell to fifth, with Lewis Hamilton’s Ferarri set to start sixth.<\/p>\n

“Pretty surprising how big a jump McLaren and Ferrari made. That’s pretty damn impressive,” Russell, who won the season opener in Australia, said.<\/p>\n

“From my side, I’ve been struggling. Miami is not a track I love, especially in those hotter conditions but it’s only Sprint Qualifying, so let’s see what tomorrow brings.”<\/p>\n

Franco Colapinto, Isack Hadjar and Pierre Gasly round out the top 10.<\/p>\n

There has been no racing in F1 since the Japanese Grand Prix in March, with the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia races called off due to the Iran war.<\/p>\n

Piastri had just found his feet in Japan after a nightmare start to the year, having failed to make the starting grid in Melbourne and Shanghai.<\/p>\n

In Suzuka, the 25-year-old burst from the blocks and finished runner-up to Mercedes ace Kimi Antonelli<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

Norris said although he expected his McLaren to work nicely on the track, the upgrades for this weekend had clearly worked.<\/p>\n

McLaren brought a major upgrade package to this race, as did most other teams on the grid, although Mercedes did not.<\/p>\n

“We’ve known that this track has always been good to us but we knew that what we were bringing was hopefully going to be a good step, so it’s nice that our estimations have proved correct,” Norris said.<\/p>\n

“Since the first lap today, I’ve felt comfortable and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve got a bit of rear grip.’<\/p>\n

“[It’s] good to start the weekend with a pole.”<\/p>\n

The main grand prix, the fourth round of the season, is on Sunday (Monday morning AEST).<\/p>\n

ABC\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 world champion Lando Norris has taken pole position for the Miami Grand Prix sprint race, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,813,1737,166574,283711,2333,85,96099,22301],"class_list":["post-643812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-formula-1","tag-lando-norris","tag-miami-gp","tag-miami-grand-prix","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sports","tag-sprint","tag-sprint-qualifying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}