Antonelli completes pole hat trick with Miami P1

The championship leader set a time of 1m27.798s on his banker lap in Q3 and held off Verstappen, who couldn’t close the gap enough despite a strong final effort, finishing 0.166s behind the Italian for his first front-row start of the season.

Charles Leclerc also couldn’t bridge the gap, finishing 0.345s behind the Mercedes, with sprint winner Lando Norris a further four hundredths back in fourth place.

Oscar Piastri was unable to mount a challenge for pole, making a slight error on his final Q3 push lap and will start the race in a disappointing seventh place, the first time in 2026 he has been outqualified by his teammate.

In securing his third consecutive pole, Antonelli becomes only the third driver in history alongside Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna to take their first three career poles in succession.

Antonelli said he was delighted with qualifying to take pole, despite a slight error on his final run in Q3.

“It’s been an amazing day. To be on pole again,” he said.

“Obviously it was a difficult start to the day with the sprint where it didn’t go our way, but super happy with the recovery and yeah, was a good quali.

“Obviously got a bit too excited in that last lap of Q3 but the first lap was good enough and I’m really happy with that.”

The Italian added his final run had been compromised by braking too late into one of the corners, adding to a tense few final moments.

“I was very stressed to be fair because I was just waiting for everyone to finish their laps. But at the end as I said before it was good enough and I’m really happy with that,” he said.

 

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Antonelli explained he was hopeful that he would get a clean start tomorrow, after struggling to get away clean off the line in the sprint earlier in the day, as well as from pole last time out in Japan.

“Hopefully the magic one [start] will happen tomorrow,” he joked.

“It would be nice not to lose any position. But we’ll do our best.

“This weekend obviously has been a little bit more difficult for us. But we’re keeping all this together and we’re maximising the performance.

“So I’m very happy with that.”

Verstappen meanwhile said he was satisfied to end up on the front row, adding that improvements made during the April break had helped with his performance.

“For me it’s been two things. For sure the car has not been great in the previous races but also from my side I never felt comfortable with the layout of the car,” he said.

“I think over the last few weeks the team has been pushing flat out to try and bring upgrades to the car and making me feel more comfortable with a lot of things in the car and it really pays off.

“I mean I feel more in control with the car again and then I can push a bit more. Then the upgrades are working. And yeah.

“To be on the front row is way better than I expected heading into this weekend.”

He added that the start would be crucial for his chances of the win in the race, adding that rain could also throw a spanner in the works.

“Let’s first start with a good start,” Verstappen said.

“I’ve not had a lot of them this year. We’ll try and have a look at that for sure. See what the weather will do tomorrow.

“But I’m already very happy with where we are. From here there’s like light at the end of the tunnel and we can just push on and try to close the gap further.”

Verstappen also commented on his race pace, saying it looked solid for the grand prix.

“It looked alright in the sprint. Once I was in clean air,” he added.

“Of course tomorrow is a completely different day.”

Leclerc said it was a closely fought session that he ultimately didn’t have the pace to fully challenge for pole.

“Yeah it was on the limit,” he said.

“At the end of the day we were just not fast enough today. And this weekend we brought a significant package which helped us but there are still areas where we need to improve a little bit.

“It was a very tricky qualifying. The wind was changing also slightly from run to run. So the car was behaving differently, especially in [Turns] 11 and 12.

“There was massive differences between laps. So that was tricky to manage to put it a lap together.

“To end in P3 is a good starting position and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

He also added he was unsure if he had damage during the session, after he had come on the radio during one of his runs after taking too much kerb.

“I didn’t have any news from the team so I think no, but I’ll have to check,” Leclerc said.

“It was quite a big hit. But yeah, I don’t think it affected massively the end result.”

George Russell finished fifth, the first time he hasn’t been on the front row all season in what has been a challenging weekend for the British driver.

He will start one place ahead of compatriot Lewis Hamilton, who also hasn’t been able to match the pace of his teammate this weekend.

Franco Colapinto will line up for his equal-best grand prix start in eighth behind Piastri, putting in a strong qualifying performance to finish ahead of the second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar and his Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly.

The wind played havoc in Q2, with several drivers reporting issues with high gusts across the second part of qualifying.

Norris faced a few nervous moments during the session, aborting his first run after going off at Turn 5, before later reporting possible energy deployment issues, which McLaren confirmed were wind-related rather than a car problem, although they did acknowledge a minor boost issue with his car during the session.

The reigning world champion managed to progress comfortably, but was well off the pace in a session headed by Verstappen, with the top six separated by just half a second.

Nico Hulkenberg was one of the six drivers eliminated in Q2, finishing 11th in qualifying for the third race in 2026.

He ended up ahead of Liam Lawson, who improved from his sprint qualifying yesterday but was unable to crack the top 10 and reach Q3.

Oliver Bearman, Carlos Sainz, Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon all joined Hulkenberg and Lawson in being eliminated in Q2.

Piastri played it fast and loose in Q1, languishing near the bottom of the session in 16th place before scraping into the second part of qualifying by just two tenths of a second.

The Australian appeared to struggle for pace in the second sector of the Miami International Autodrome, with McLaren later confirming a power issue during the session, leaving the benefit of an extra set of fresh tyres as the only positive from a nervous outing.

Arvid Lindblad wasn’t able to eliminate the McLaren and finished 17th, ahead of the Aston Martin pair of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, who will take some satisfaction in outqualifying the Cadillacs of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez in 20th and 21st respectively.

Gabriel Bortoleto ended Q1 in last place but did well to even make it on track after a difficult session for Audi.

The Brazilian had earlier been disqualified from the sprint for a technical breach relating to his engine air intake, with the team keeping him in the garage for most of Q1 while investigating the issue.

He was eventually able to head out and set a time, but pulled off to the side of the road on his in-lap with his brakes on fire, handing Audi a second failure of the day after Hulkenberg retired from the sprint on the opening lap with an engine issue.

With the grid set and the threat of looming rain, teams and drivers will now reset and analyse the data ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, which begins at 4pm local time Sunday (6am AEST Monday).

Results: Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, Qualifying