Last year, Kimi Antonelli took his maiden Sprint pole at the F1 Miami GP. Ahead of this year’s race, the 19-year-old is excited to get back on track for the weekend.
Antonelli has had an excellent start to the 2026 F1 season. Victories at the Chinese and Japanese GP have left him sitting at the top of the standings. He will be hoping to continue his form this weekend in Miami. But after having a month’s break from racing, will Mercedes still have the upper hand?
Antonelli is looking forward to the Miami GP
Last year at the Miami GP, Antonelli was a rookie who had just achieved his maiden Sprint pole. This year, he enters the weekend leading the championship standings. However, despite the very different circumstances, he is still as excited to go racing.
“Yes, it’s very exciting to be back in a place where I got my first Sprint pole last year. Of course it’s going to be different this year, again different cars, so we’ll see how that goes. It’s going to be a very interesting weekend for us. We’re not really bringing anything, to be fair, just very small things, whilst other teams are bringing big upgrades, such as Ferrari and McLaren. Also Red Bull, they’re bringing an upgrade.
“So, let’s see how we’re going to do. For sure they’re going to get closer, and we might have to fight quite a bit more this weekend. But yeah, we’ll do our best, we’re going to keep our head down. And on my side I’m going to try to maximise the performance in the car and going to try to do my best, and then we’ll see what the result will be.”
Practicing his starts
Since the start of the season, Kimi Antonelli has struggled with his race starts. Not being able to get off the line has seen him tumbling down the order in all three Grands Prix. However, thanks to Mercedes huge advantage over the rest of the field, he has been able to make it back to the top.
But with a month off from racing, other teams may have had an opportunity to catch up. Ahead of the F1 Miami GP, Antonelli was asked if he has been practicing his starts over the break.
“Well, I think my issue is more fundamental, so I think it’s not that this tweak is going to help me massively. We have been doing some practice starts, of course, in the break. We’ve been working with the team to try and recognise what’s the issue and we seem to have found it. Now we’re trying to obviously think about a solution as soon as possible and then obviously we know where to work on for the solution.
“So, it’s not going to be that straightforward because it needs a change on the clutch paddle and a little bit on hand positioning as well, so definitely it’s not going to be as straightforward. But we are doing our best to find that solution as soon as possible in order to be able to do decent starts.
“But definitely we recognised that my issue was much more fundamental. Now we’ll see in Miami if we can do a step forward and then obviously we have another break after Miami, so more time to work on and to find that solution.”
Possibility of a wet F1 Miami GP
Following the introduction of the new regulations in 2026, we have yet to see a wet race. However, forecasts show the potential for heavy rain during the race on Sunday.
With the potential of wet F1 Miami GP, Antonelli was asked how he feels the cars will handle the weather. The FIA also added into their regulations a rule where boost cannot be used in those conditions.
“Yeah, I drove the car when we did the shakedown in Silverstone in the wet and definitely it was very tricky. Although now with the changes, they clipped the power to 250 kilowatts for the wet and no boost, so that’s already a step forward in that regard. And definitely I think it’s going to be tricky because there will be a lot of unknown, and obviously we’re also going to be racing if the wet weather presents.
“But I think also another big topic is that we will need to increase tyre blanket [temperatures] for the wet because I think as they are now, probably they will be a bit too low for the conditions. So yeah, it’s going to be interesting to see, tricky, but let’s see. If it’s thunderstorms, like they say, we probably also won’t get underway for quite a bit of time.
“So, let’s see how that goes. But definitely it’s going to be very interesting because there’s so much unknown in the wet at the moment, especially no one really used the inter tyres, so we don’t know how it’s going to feel, how much grip there will be, especially with the new regulation. And I think also one thing with this year’s cars, it’s a bit harder to build temperature with the tyres, so in the wet they might be tricky and that’s why we probably would need to increase tyre blanket [temps] in order to make it a bit better and a bit easier on that side. But yeah, let’s see what’s going to happen.”
