The Formula One paddock reconvened in Miami like it was a second start to the season following the enforced five-week hiatus.
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East meant the cancellation of the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, giving the chasing pack much-wanted time at their respective factories to find solutions to close the gap on the front-running Mercedes.
On the evidence of the sprint race yesterday at the Hard Rock Stadium, McLaren appear to have done the best job to lay down a challenge to the Mercedes hegemony. Lando Norris had sealed the first non-Mercedes pole of the season in sprint qualifying and backed that up with a lights-to-flag victory in the shortened race. With Oscar Piastri in second, the McLaren one-two all felt very 2025.
Miami has habitually been a bountiful hunting ground for Norris and McLaren. It was here in 2024 when the two ignited their respective championship challenges after a difficult start to the season and again Norris won the sprint a year ago.
What is behind the overturn in fortunes? For one, new regulations have come into place for race four in this complex new generation of rules with regards to energy harvesting and deployment both in qualifying and the races.
McLaren have clearly initially got to grips with it the best of anyone but have also benefited from a major upgrade to their car, with seven changes in all from the last race, most tellingly a new floor but also front corner end plates, sidepod inlets, a new rear wing and more besides.
The caveat to all that is that Miami could yet prove a false dawn. An energy rich track, there is the possibility it could prove an anomaly on the calendar, while it’s also worth pointing out that Mercedes have barely brought an upgrade here, their overhaul expected to come at the next race in Montreal. George Russell has clearly not been happy with his car since the resumption of action, while his team-mate Kimi Antonelli’s issues with his starts continued, his sluggishness off the front row of the grid dropping him two places.
Come the end, he had slipped down further still to sixth after a five-second penalty for repeatedly exceeding track limits, putting him behind Charles Leclerc, who completed the podium, Russell and Max Verstappen.
For the preceding three races, much of the talk has been about whether Verstappen might walk away from the sport after this season such is his displeasure at the rules facelift. He called the FIA’s changes in Miami a mere “tickle”, unlike the notable alterations to his car: a new floor, side pods and rear wing.
He argued such changes had halved the gap to the front and, bar one small complaint about bouncing under braking in the sprint, he has seemed far happier so far this weekend.
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The future of the four-time world champion on the grid looks more secure should he have a quicker car at his disposal. The RB22 is clearly heading in that direction.
Ferrari, meanwhile, have made the most changes of all the top teams with 11 new revisions to their car but, for Lewis Hamilton in particular in a lowly seventh place, they have not immediately had the desired effect, at least for these 19 laps of racing.
Where exactly the pecking order now stands will become a little clearer during tomorrow’s main grand prix, but even more so at the Canadian Grand Prix in three weeks.
Quite what teams can conjure up in the intervening time is unknown with all of them renowned for keeping things close to their chests but at least there is now the modicum of hope that Mercedes will not simply run away with the championship after starting with three wins. For defending champion Norris, it was a return to the top spot with which he became so familiar last year.
Photograph by Chandan Khanna/Getty Images