Winners and losers from F1's 2026 Miami sprint

Mercedes’ domination of the 2026 Formula 1 season was emphatically interrupted in the Miami sprint.

That makes some of the entries in our winners and losers list very easy to pick.

Winner: McLaren (1st & 2nd)

Staking its claim to be the biggest benefactor of the rule tweaks, and most improved in the upgrades department, McLaren confirmed its sprint supremacy in Miami by breaking Mercedes’ unbeaten run and clinching its first 1-2 of 2026.

There were early signs that this might be the weekend that McLaren turned up the wick and emerges as the new team to beat, and it has capitalised at its first points-scoring opportunity. 

The second Lando Norris made it to the first corner in front, a fourth-career sprint victory never looked in doubt. He was simply in cruise control from start to finish and never came under any pressure to defend his lead, something we couldn’t even say about the weekends of Mercedes dominance over the opening three weekends.

Oscar Piastri, on the other hand, saw off some late pressure from Charles Leclerc to keep a firm grip of second place. Piastri never looked to have race-winning pace, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he managed to build a gap and grind out a result that the team desperately needed. 

The upgrades have worked exactly as McLaren would have hoped, as it looks like a real threat to take over as the dominant force in Miami. - Eden Hannigan

Loser: Kimi Antonelli (6th)

It began with a terrible start, and ended with a track limits penalty - Kimi Antonelli had a terrible sprint Saturday.

On Friday, Antonelli had been Mercedes’ shining light with George Russell struggling, and it felt like a wider moment in his journey towards fighting for a title - taking the battle to McLaren when Russell couldn't. But today felt much more ‘sophomore struggler’ than ‘team leader’.

Antonelli said he’d done all the procedures on the start correctly so that wasn’t his fault, but the many driving errors and track limits infringements thereafter made us think back to the rookie of a year ago instead of the standout Mercedes star of yesterday. Even Leclerc had a massive pop at Antonelli's “unbelievable” (in a bad way!) wheel-to-wheel combat, although Leclerc did soften those comments out of the cockpit afterwards.

Everyone has bad days. Kimi needs to put this behind him quickly as it’s days like this where the more polished Russell can deal massive, decisive blows - in points and in momentum. - Jack Benyon

Loser: Mercedes (4th & 6th)

After its dominant start to the 2026 season was halted in sprint qualifying, we were keen to see just how this would translate for Mercedes in race trim. If anything, it might have been even worse than initially expected.

Toto Wolff admitted the team was “hoping we were going to be able to hold onto our advantage” but never looked close to podium-level pace. Perhaps its chances of a top three finish were scuppered by its best candidate - that was Antonelli - with the poor race start and for picking up that needless track limits penalty which demoted him from fourth to sixth after the flag. 

Things on the other side of the garage were not much better either. At times, Russell may have argued he was faster than his team-mate, but he struggled to prove it decisively. In fact, he was fortunate not to drop behind Max Verstappen at the chequered flag, with his pace seemingly evaporating in the latter stages as Mercedes’ winning streak came to a juddering end. 

All in all, just a very underwhelming sprint from a team that looked so far off the high standards it’s set so far. - EH

Loser: Audi (11th & DNS)

There have been five competitive starts so far this season: three grands prix, and two sprint races. And Audi has failed to put one of its cars on the grid three times out of five.

Nico Hulkenberg’s smoky exit on the reconnaissance laps marked yet another technical failure of some description for the new works team, which also only had one car take the start in the Australian and Chinese GPs.

Given this was a race its cars were set to start on the fringes of the points, there was probably no great competitive loss. But it is a bad look that this team seems to have such a chronic reliability weakness that it has not got on top of.

And it may yet get worse still, with Gabriel Bortoleto at risk of losing his 11th place having been clocked by the stewards for an engine air intake pressure breach. - Scott Mitchell-Malm

Winner: Max Verstappen (5th)

This result will encourage Max Verstappen even more than a positive sprint qualifying in which Red Bull seemed to have halved its recent deficit.

It got dicey on the opening lap sandwiched between Lewis Hamilton and Franco Colapinto, and contact with the latter, and the move on Hamilton mid-race that went just a touch too far led to a slightly laboured bit of letting the Ferrari back through.

But in terms of pace, which is all Verstappen will care about, this was good for Red Bull.

Good pace, good tyre management, and a lot of pressure on Russell’s Mercedes at the end.

And his race ended on such a high that he was able to beat the penalised Antonelli by a tenth of a second! - SMM

Loser: Franco Colapinto (10th)

It needs to be stressed immediately that Colapinto’s ‘loser’ status here is circumstantial – the act of losing a potential points finish, through no real fault of his own.

You could argue he needed to be more circumspect but that’s a little uncharitable. Colapinto had the inside line for the first corner, ended up on the outside for the next, and probably didn’t really know either time that it was three-wide!

He lost out because three into one doesn’t go, and that’s a shame. His pace afterwards wasn’t stunning but he might have been carrying a bit of damage and complained of a lack of rear grip.

It was a shame he couldn’t follow Alpine team-mate Pierre Gasly home on track but getting passed by Isack Hadjar’s Red Bull at the end was largely irrelevant given the car disparity. He’d done well to hold Hadjar off most of the race. - SMM

Winner: Esteban Ocon (12th)

Esteban Ocon entered this weekend with one point compared to Haas team-mate Ollie Bearman’s 17 scored in one fewer finish after Bearman’s massive Suzuka crash. In sprint qualifying, things didn’t look much better for Ocon.

But having been 0.631s slower than Bearman in that qualifying session, Ocon drove impeccably in the sprint, was the fastest Haas driver and mugged Bearman in the second half of the race to take 12th.

It doesn’t mean anything in terms of points or tomorrow’s grand prix, but intra-team wins against Bearman have been sparse recently - who has thoroughly outshone his more experienced team-mate. Maybe this is a springboard for Ocon to close the gap to the high-flying Bearman. - JB

Loser: Haas (12th & 13th)

While Ocon’s four places gained was a strong point for Haas, Audi and Alpine were well up the road in the battle of the midfield and the team that came to Miami fourth in the constructors’ championship was painfully off the pace.

Alpine especially appears to have made a big step, Audi only had one car, Red Bull looks less attainable to the midfield now and Williams wasn’t that far off Haas either with its myriad upgrades.

A Haas team which started this year as the midfield best of the rest in many respects will hope this weekend is a blip and not the beginning of a trend. - JB