{"id":256413,"date":"2026-05-03T09:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T09:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256413\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T09:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T09:35:13","slug":"winners-and-losers-from-miami-grand-prix-qualifying-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256413\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners and losers from Miami Grand Prix qualifying 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Grand Prix qualifying produced a massive shift<\/a> in the Formula 1 pecking order compared to the sprint race<\/a> that had run just hours beforehand.<\/p>\n

Here’s our pick of stars and flops from all the fluctuations.<\/p>\n

Loser: McLaren (4th & 7th)<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri being the last car to make it through Q1 in 16th was the first alarm bell that McLaren wasn’t going to be in the fight for pole position like it had been in sprint qualifying.<\/p>\n

After a 1-2 in the sprint it was regression for McLaren, and Andrea Stella put it down to the four teams at the top being closer together than sprint qualifying made it look. A change of wind speed and direction, power unit issues, and drivers finding their rhythm were all areas managed better by other teams, reckoned Stella.<\/p>\n

Even Lando Norris – absolutely mighty this weekend until now – struggled in qualifying proper and wasn’t exactly sure of the prevailing reason, suggesting some of his rivals just did a bad job on Friday and gave McLaren a “reality check” in qualifying proper with their real pace.<\/p>\n

Back to the drawing board for McLaren to understand these issues before the grand prix. – Jack Benyon<\/p>\n

Winner: Red Bull (2nd & 9th)<\/p>\n

Red Bull’s Miami weekend keeps getting better. On the evidence of Saturday, the RB22 has pole-challenging one-lap pace – at least in the right circumstances.<\/p>\n

Not only has the car been tricky to drive and slow early this season, Red Bull has also struggled to make progress with it in-weekend. It has been hard to understand so whatever potential may have existed remained untapped.<\/p>\n

Whether the ceiling’s been raised or more has been exploited, in Miami Red Bull has had a car that was quicker than before, but also has progressed through the weekend well. And while Max Verstappen’s ploughed a lone furrow at the front, Isack Hadjar actually made deceptively good progress on Saturday too.<\/p>\n

Hadjar cut a much less frustrated figure after qualifying as he felt his process and progress after a tough Friday was good, just not rewarded with a particularly tidy lap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The car can still be difficult to drive but with both drivers clearly happier, and raw pace now appearing for the first time, Red Bull had a very encouraging qualifying beyond the strong headline result. – Scott Mitchell-Malm<\/p>\n

Loser: George Russell (5th)<\/p>\n

This weekend has never really got going for George Russell, and it remained exactly the case after a disappointing qualifying left him fifth and almost four tenths of a second behind polesitter and Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli.<\/p>\n

Russell believed an error at the final corner on his final lap cost him around three tenths, but even that wouldn’t have been enough to snatch pole away from his title rival, something that will be a massive concern on his side of the garage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Simply put, he’s been outperformed by Antonelli over the weekend. Russell put it down to never really gelling with the low-grip Miami circuit, something he was keen to point out while highlighting the difference between the pair. Although that explanation adds up when looking at their previous results, it doesn’t quite explain just how he’s managed to slip behind Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Norris too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s clear that Russell will need a change in fortunes to close the gap, and perhaps the imminent change in weather conditions might be his only hope of getting the upper hand. – Eden Hannigan<\/p>\n

Winner: Kimi Antonelli (1st)<\/p>\n

There was a giddy exuberance to Antonelli both on track and off it as he secured a hat-trick of pole positions that put him in esteemed company. (Only Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher had previously taken their first three grand prix poles in three consecutive weekends).<\/p>\n

He conceded he “probably got a bit too excited” on his second Q3 lap by outbraking himself, but it mattered not: his first lap was more than enough, despite the threat of the resurgent Verstappen, and that marked a great recovery from a tricky sprint and an unnecessary track limits penalty.<\/p>\n

There was a stumble in the post-qualifying press conference, too, as he began to describe the heat in Miami as akin to having a “hairdresser pointed at my face” – swiftly correcting this to “hairdryer”, before adding: “I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming. Sorry; long day.”<\/p>\n

If that feels insignificant to mention anecdotally, the self-deprecative way he dealt with it wasn’t. This is a driver in a very comfortable spot at the moment – and doing an excellent job of upstaging his more experienced team-mate. – Jack Cozens<\/p>\n

Loser: Audi (11th & 22nd)<\/p>\n

It seems like the mold was set early for this to be a painful day for Audi.<\/p>\n

Even disregarding Gabriel Bortoleto’s disqualification<\/a> from the sprint race, qualifying continued in a messy vein.<\/p>\n

Bortoleto’s car sat up on its stands in the garage as the session began and even if it was a “miracle” – the 21-year-old’s apt description of events – that Audi managed to put the gearbox and whole rear axle back on the car “in half an hour”, it was hardly worth it for the 3.8-second gap to Q2 progression and subsequent in-lap brake fire.<\/p>\n

He said afterwards this was a “consequence probably of what happened to put the cars out on track”, and not connected to his sprint race exclusion for his engine’s intake air pressure exceeding the maximum permitted limit. But whatever the cause, it wasn’t a good look.<\/p>\n

And Nico Hulkenberg – 11th, after his sprint race non-start, but fully aware there was “quite a big gap” to Q3 – might just have sent the Audi PR team into a spin with his metaphorical quip with accidental literal connotations: “There’s still a lot of firefighting issues on both cars.” – JC<\/p>\n

Winner: Franco Colapinto (8th)<\/p>\n

It’s been a strong weekend in general for Alpine, but for Colapinto to outqualify his team-mate Pierre Gasly twice and be comfortably inside the top 10 each time makes him undoubtedly one of the winners from qualifying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Colapinto wasn’t certain which of the Alpine upgrades has most contributed to his upturn in pace, he said “it’s just clear that I’m much more competitive and that’s really positive”.<\/p>\n

And he’s spot on. Breezing through Q1 and Q2 with relative ease, he put himself in a prime position for a strong starting spot and was evidently delighted at the thought of qualifying in front of one of the Red Bull cars, so it’s more than clear that both parties have taken a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old admitted he expects to struggle more in the race due to having the old-specification front wing, but he’ll still be one of the favourites for a points-paying position given just how strong his performance has been over the weekend. – EH<\/p>\n

Losers: Alpine’s rivals<\/p>\n

Alpine seems to have moved itself clear of the midfield with its upgrade package in Miami.<\/p>\n

The now-Mercedes-powered team had the edge in the two races before the April gap as well, but as a revitalised Colapinto has been in superb form so far this weekend, it has been able to lock down the final places in Q3 for the first time.<\/p>\n

In fact, rivals have not been able to get near. The Alpine advantage is several tenths of a second, which Liam Lawson said had ‘caught out’ Racing Bulls and Haas driver Ollie Bearman admitted was unexpected – even though different upgrade plans meant it was possible.<\/p>\n

Gasly even said Alpine had surprised itself slightly with how well this weekend had gone. Gasly himself has not been happy in the car – he complained about traction again after qualifying – but regardless of the reason he has been the second-best Alpine here. – SMM<\/p>\n

Loser: Cadillac (20th & 21st)<\/p>\n

This was a backwards step for Cadillac after a very encouraging Friday in which Sergio Perez offered the first hint of a Q2 challenge in sprint qualifying.<\/p>\n

The sprint itself was already a disappointment but that was a result of Cadillac choosing Saturday’s race to run the hard tyres for the first time and gather data for the grand prix.<\/p>\n

Come main qualifying, though, Cadillac’s lower-midfield-challenging pace disappeared and was replaced by a failure to even beat Aston Martin.<\/p>\n

Perez lamented a messy qualifying session, with a deployment issue on his final run, and while Valtteri Bottas was happier he still qualified half a second slower than the Aston Martins and 1.7s from a Q2 place.<\/p>\n

Team boss Graeme Lowdon said “that we are disappointed shows just how far we have come in just four races” but it was disappointing nonetheless. – SMM<\/p>\n

Arvid Lindblad (17th)<\/p>\n

Lindblad had an extremely tough Saturday indeed.<\/p>\n

He will start Sunday’s grand prix 17th, after he was caught in a gaggle of cars entering the last corner which compromised his preparation – with the 2026 cars needing extremely accurate and timely inputs and processes to be observed before a lap can be done in the correct window.<\/p>\n

Lindblad had already missed the sprint race entirely. His Racing Bulls team had been working on the car and didn’t put a cover on it after sprint qualifying, which meant a pitlane start, but then another as-yet unexplained issue stopped him from even starting the sprint.<\/p>\n

A lack of laps on what is a very particular circuit, which catches out a number of drivers who struggle to adapt their style, plus issues with the complicated power units add up to a recipe for a very unpleasant day for a driver so inexperienced. – JB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami Grand Prix qualifying produced a massive shift in the Formula 1 pecking order compared to the sprint…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-256413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}