2026 Miami GP Raceday Preview

Check out James Punt’s 2026 Miami GP raceday preview below.

2026 Miami GP Raceday

As expected, the race start time has been brought forward by three hours to avoid the worst of the weather and according to my forecaster, there is still a high chance (65%) of a thunderstorm during the race. It is now a 1pm start local time and it will be very overcast, very humid and remaining warm, but six or seven degrees cooler than yesterday.

I used to look forward to wet races, but F1 is increasingly a dry formula. If it does rain, will they just throw a red flag until conditions improve? The Miami track is very flat and any rain just sits on the surface, forming big puddles and that makes it very difficult for the drivers not to aquaplane.

When we had a wet sprint race here last year, we saw Leclerc crash on his way to the start and that was enough to have the start delayed. When it got going it had stopped raining but the wet track threw up a lot of spray before it became dry enough for slicks after eleven laps or so. The was only one crash and it wasn’t weather related.

Rain An Unknown

The problem with today’s race is that it may still be dry, but if it does rain, we don’t really know how the drivers will cope with these more heavily electrified cars. The battery packs deliver the power instantaneously and dumping a huge amount of power down on a wet track is going to cause a big loss of traction.

Not many of the drivers have driven these cars in the wet, so it will be learning on the job. Ferrari did a wet weather test for Pirelli at the Fiorano circuit during the break, but that was in a modified SF25 and not this year’s car. The truth is, we don’t really know what will happen.

Chaos?

The general consensus is that it will be chaos, cars crashing out and a very random race, but sometimes these things get over-hyped, and the drivers find a way to get round. And of course, there is a chance that we will not see any rain in any case.

I fear that if we do get a rain affected race, the stewards will be very quick with yellow and even red flags. There tends to be yellow flags here in any case as it is hard to recover any crashed cars from the track.

We have had four Miami GPs and none have been won from pole position. The starting positions of the winners have been, from 2022 onwards, 3rd, 9th, 5th and 4th. All dry races. The average attrition rate is 2.00 with a high of 4.00 last year.

Grid Positions

Today’s grid has the slow starting Kimi Antonelli on pole and alongside him is the slow starting Max Verstappen. The second row has the fast-starting Charles Leclerc and relatively fast starting Lando Norris. With a short run into the first corner, the faster starters do lose much of their advantage, but we do have a scenario where all four cars arrive at the first corner very, very close together.

The formbook this week is very confusing. Antonelli has been consistently quick but he has said that it is a very difficult track to drive. It is very low on grip and getting consistent laps in is tricky. In the wet it would be very tricky. George Russell just can’t get on with these kinds of low grip surfaces and he is in damage limitation mode.

Their slow starts are a big concern and Antonelli said he was hoping that we have a rolling start behind the safety car (if it is wet). That is another factor that messes with my head, will it be a standing start or not?

Red Bull Improvement

The Red Bull, or at least Verstappen’s Red Bull has improved, but it wasn’t much of a factor in the Sprint race, but that was because he got stuck in a battle with the slower Ferrari of Hamilton. When he got past him, Verstappen was reeling in the cars ahead. It was still a bit of a surprise to see him suddenly on the front row in GP qualifying.

Verstappen says he can now feel in control of the car. It responds predictably to his inputs and is more consistent. He also said that it is still a handful in the faster corners in sector one, which may further compromise the early stage of his race.

Hadjar has been struggling all weekend and only managed to finish 9th, as he had done for every timed session. To cap a terrible weekend, he has been disqualified from qualifying for an illegal floor. It was 2mm too big and he will now start 22nd.

McLaren Disappointing

Of course, the big story from qualifying was the non-performance of the McLaren’s. From class of the field for the Sprint part of the weekend, to 4th and 7th. They got slower while their rivals got faster. You expect cars to get faster from the Sprint to the GP qualifying as they have lots more data to fine tune their set up, but you don’t expect a car to get slower, but that is what McLaren did.

It all stems from these super complicated power units and how they deploy their power. McLaren hinted that the stronger headwinds drained more energy from the batteries down the straight and that in turn messed up the computers trying to recharge the batteries in the rest of the lap. They said it is just very hard to get the power management system just right. They did for the sprint, but a change in conditions was enough to derail them in GP qualifying. What would happen in the wet?

Ferrari

Ferrari promised much but have delivered not a lot in relative terms. The car is better, but Red Bull and McLaren (when the computer works) made bigger steps. We were just too slow, said Leclerc. He starts third, which is his best qualifying position of the season, so progress has been made.

The fast starting Ferrari has two cars that have been slow starters ahead of them, very slow at times, and Leclerc could well be challenging for the lead on lap one, but would he be able to hold it? Clean air still seems to be a big factor in these cars’ performance, so maybe he could.

Hamilton starts from sixth place but he has been the slower of the two drivers all weekend. He said that the car was much improved from what he had in the Sprint, so he will be looking to make some progress.

Alpine

Alpine have been led by Colapinto this weekend. Gasly has the latest front wing but his qualifying pace as not been great. He qualified 10th in the sprint and finished eight and he starts 10th again today. They have the fifth quickest car and seem to have pulled clear of their rivals in the midfield battle. A double points finish is a real possibility, but Colapinto, in the wet, could be messy.

Hulkenberg qualified 11th, the spot on the grid reserved for an Audi, but Bortoleto, who was disqualified from the sprit race due to an illegality with the car. In the GP qualifying he only got out of the garage with a few minutes to spare, and his brakes then caught fire. He starts 21st. Their car is very slow off the line, but a wet race start may not show them up so badly here.

Racing Bulls

The Racing Bulls struggled badly in the Sprint portion of the weekend, culminating with Lindblad not being able to take part in Sprint qualifying due to a technical problem. Lawson finished an underwhelming 15th. He improved with a 12th place in GP qualifying but they have lost ground to Alpine in the development race.

Ocon made good progress from a lowly grid position in the Sprint race, as the Haas cars tend to do. However, they didn’t have the pace to get any higher than 12th and 13th. They are out of step with developments and have lost ground as a result.

Williams showed some better qualifying pace but it was only a small step and they need much more. The car remains overweight.

Aston Martin had a bit of a result with Alonso finishing 16th in the Sprint race, beating the Cadillacs. Whoopie. Cadillac would be bringing up the rear, but for Bortoleto and Hadjar’s woes.

2026 Miami GP raceday Summary

I was hopeful that we were going to land our Norris to win the race bet, but that has gone a bit tits up. You never know, especially with we get a rain affected race. In that case, anything could happen.

It is very hard to know what to do when faced with a weather forecast that says that there is a 40-65% chance of rain affecting the race at some point. The morning’s heavy rain has now cleared the area but there are more showers and thunderstorms approaching from the Gulf of Mexico. The F2 race is about to start as I type this, and the track is still wet, but there is no rain.

We just don’t know if a) it will rain, and b) just how these new generation of cars will cope with a wet track, if it does rain.

Dry To Suit Leclerc

In a dry race, I would be interested in Leclerc. He should have a reasonable chance of fighting for the lead of the race at the start. Would he have the pace to stay there is the problem. Verstappen is a proven wet weather master and in a rejuvenated Red Bull, he could get back to winning ways, but he has not been great at race starts with these new power units.

Antonelli is harder to fancy given his start line troubles. The team said that yesterday’s poor getaway wasn’t his fault, but it doesn’t really matter whose fault it was, it is just another example of a poor start for a Mercedes.

We are already invested in Norris at 13.00 each way but as we have seen in the previous four GPs here the race, dry races, have been won from as far back as 9th on the grid, and nobody on the front row has won. It has proven to be a bit of a mad track in the dry.

Wet a Lottery

In the wet it could be a lucky dip. There are opportunists like Gasly and Ocon in the field who have had big results in weird races. Hulkenberg got his first and only podium finish in the mad wet – dry British GP last year, so we know that very unlikely results are possible if we get mixed conditions.

Watching the F2 race on a wet track, we have had three safety cars in the first ten laps! And it isn’t even raining. Oh…make that five.

Looking at the latest weather radar images and there is a mass of rain showers heading towards the track, some of it is very heavy, most of it moderate. There is some heavy rain forecast for 1.00pm local time, bang on the start of the race, but when the rain is coming has been changing by the hour. More persistent rain could arrive in the very late stages of the race.

Selections

With such an uncertain weather forecast, it is hard to be confident about this race. You could just fire off a lot of small bets at big priced outsiders and hope for chaos, or apply some logic and hope that the rain stays away.

The fact that the front row cars have never won the GPs here is a bit strange. Just a coincidence, or is there a reason? Will the trend continue or will the trend of the pole sitter winning the first three races of this season continue? Mercedes have lost the kind of performance advantage they enjoyed in the first three races which suggests that we may see another team take the spoils.

The long run pace of the Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren was very close, and Red Bull looked to have improved in that respect in the Sprint race. I will take a chance on Leclerc. His odds mean that if he can get his third podium finish of the season, the bet breaks even and we get a free shot at the win, should the front row curse strike again. He needs a great start, and he might well get one.

2026 Miami GP raceday Tip: 1 point e/w Charles Leclerc to win @ 6.00 with Ladbrokes, Boylesports, Betfair, Skybet (1/5 the odds 1-3)

Match Bet

Unibet are offering a decent value bet for Ocon to beat Bortoleto. The Audi driver has had a bad weekend and while the Audi may have reasonable race pace, so does the Haas. Ocon made up six places in the Sprint race.

Ocon also has the advantage of starting from 14th on the grid, while Bortoleto starts 21st having failed to set a time in qualifying yesterday. Ocon is a very experienced driver which hopefully means he can cope with changeable conditions better than the young Brazilian. In a dry race, this would have been a two pointer, but with the weather looking poor, I will be more cautious.

2026 Miami GP raceday Tip: 1 point Esteban Ocon to beat Gabriel Bortoleto @ 1.78 with Unibet

Group Bet

I will take a small chance in a group bet, that really needs the rain. Carlos Sainz is a very capable wet weather driver, he handles low grip conditions well and that is what he may well get here. A wet, and therefore slower, race would suit the overweight Williams car more than a dry one, so he may be at less of a disadvantage than usual. Unibet have grouped him with Bearman, Lawson and Albon. At 5.75 he is worth a half point bet.

2026 Miami GP raceday Tip: 0.5 point Carlos Sainz to win Group 3 @ 5.75 with Unibet

One last bet and it has to be on the safety car. It was a very busy car in the F2 race, deployed no less than five times! OK, the F2 drivers are not as good, make more mistakes, but most of the F1 guys are going to be facing wet conditions (if it does rain) in these very difficult to drive cars. Mistakes are likely and it doesn’t take much for the safety car to be needed on these ‘street circuits’.

2026 Miami GP raceday Tip: 1 point over 2.5 safety cars in the race @ 5.50 with Livescorebet

-JamesPunt