that motorsport and Paralympic legend Alex Zanardi had passed away<\/a> \u2013 the paddock coming together on Saturday morning to remember him with a host of tributes and a minute of silence ahead of the Sprint.<\/p>\nAfter those emotional moments, drivers got into the zone and geared up for the 100-kilometre Sprint \u2013 taking place over 19 laps, and awarding points to the top-eight finishers: eight points for the victory, down to a single point for P8.<\/p>\n
However, there was drama before the race started when Hulkenberg\u2019s Audi caught fire on the reconnaissance laps and stopped at the side of the track \u2013 marshals springing into action to extinguish the flames, and the German\u2019s P12 grid slot remaining empty.<\/p>\n
When the remaining 21 cars lined up at 1200 local time, it was revealed that most drivers would be starting on the medium compound tyre, with only the Aston Martins opting for softs and only the Cadillacs going for hards.<\/p>\n
At lights out, polesitter Norris got away well to lead into Turn 1, while another sluggish start for Antonelli saw him drop to fourth, behind Piastri and Leclerc \u2013 and almost team mate Russell, who enjoyed a much cleaner launch.<\/p>\n
A few car lengths back, Verstappen and Hamilton banged wheels as they battled over sixth and seventh respectively, from the Alpines of Gasly and Colapinto, and the sole remaining Audi of Bortoleto, who had edged ahead of the slow-starting Hadjar.<\/p>\n
As the laps ticked by, Antonelli pushed hard to find a way past Leclerc and recover some lost ground, but instead came under pressure from Russell and subsequently had to go into defensive mode. \u201cKimi is so bad on wheel-to-wheel. He moved under braking. It\u2019s unbelievable,\u201d reported Leclerc over the radio.<\/p>\n
At the end of Lap 7, Russell tucked into Antonelli\u2019s slipstream along the lengthy back straight and managed to make a move for P4 into the final hairpin, but the Italian retaliated on the following tour with a pass under braking at Turn 11.<\/p>\n
Just behind them, Hamilton and Verstappen went wheel-to-wheel once more. \u201cMax overtook me going off the track,\u201d commented Hamilton after the Dutchman muscled his way past over the white lines between Turns 11 and 12.<\/p>\n
Verstappen was duly ordered to give the place back, before winding himself up again and making an overtake stick into Turn 17 a couple of laps later \u2013 the top seven now reading Norris, Piastri, Leclerc, Antonelli, Russell, Verstappen and Hamilton.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, another retirement was confirmed when planned pit lane starter Arvid Lindblad hopped out of his Racing Bulls machine and headed to the garage timing wall, while there was drama for Ocon when some bodywork flew off his Haas.<\/p>\n
Antonelli\u2019s eventful race continued when he was issued a black-and-white flag by the stewards for exceeding track limits on multiple occasions, something that would eventually catch him out with one final transgression in the closing laps of the race.<\/p>\n
Up front, Norris was enjoying life in clean air, building his advantage over Piastri to almost four seconds by the time he took the chequered flag \u2013 marking his first win of 2026, McLaren\u2019s first win of 2026, and the first non-Mercedes win of 2026.<\/p>\n
Leclerc was another 2.5 seconds adrift after running wide in his late pursuit of Piastri, while Antonelli crossed the line fourth but was pushed back to sixth post-race \u2013 behind Russell and Verstappen \u2013 for that aforementioned track limits breach and five-second penalty.<\/p>\n
Hamilton and Gasly were the final points scorers in P7 and P8 respectively, from Hadjar and Colapinto (the Frenchman pulling off a bold move into Turn 4 to grab ninth), Bortoleto and Haas duo Ocon and Bearman, who were also close together across the line.<\/p>\n
Sainz and Lawson were next up for Williams and Racing Bulls in 14th and 15th, as Aston Martin logged a slightly more positive session by making the finish with both Alonso and Stroll in 16th and 18th \u2013 the pair sandwiching the Cadillac of Perez.<\/p>\n
Albon (after a late front wing change) and Bottas were the last drivers to reach the finish in 19th and 20th, following the pre-race stoppage for Hulkenberg and the undisclosed issues that kept Lindblad\u2019s Racing Bulls car stuck in the garage.<\/p>\n
Key quote<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a good race \u2013 nice to be back on the top step, even if it\u2019s a Sprint,\u201d said Norris. \u201cA good day for us. A massive job for the team in bringing the upgrades \u2013 it feels like everyone\u2019s saying the same thing but ours have really helped this weekend, so I\u2019m happy to get it done for the team. It was hot out there, it was sweaty. I was still pushing, trying to find that balance of pushing but also being quite relaxed and not making any mistakes. A good start to the weekend, but now I have to do it all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next<\/p>\n
Following the Sprint, the drivers will return to action for Qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix later on Saturday at 1600 local time. Head to the RACE HUB<\/a> to find out how you can follow the action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris claimed victory during Saturday\u2019s Sprint at the Miami Grand Prix, crossing the line ahead of McLaren…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-645465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645465","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=645465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}