McLaren’s Lando Norris returned to the top step in F1 after winning the Sprint for the 2026 Miami GP, his first since the 2025 São Paulo GP.
The reigning F1 world champion had already dethroned the so far all-conquering Mercedes in Sprint Qualifying on Friday afternoon, and his victory in the short race never really looked in doubt after the first lap, as he steadily pulled away from his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri and won by a comfortable margin of nearly four seconds after 19 laps of racing at the 2026 Miami GP Sprint.
Norris full of praise for McLaren’s “massive” upgrades at the 2026 F1 Miami GP
Speaking after the race, the Briton praised McLaren’s work on the heavily upgraded MCL40, which gave immediate rewards in securing the team a 1-2 on its first race with the brand new parts, keeping in line with the team’s history of bringing significant updates that work straight away, a trend that’s been happening since 2023:
“It was a good race,” he said. “It’s nice to be back on the top step, even if it’s a Sprint.
“It was a massive job from the team bringing the upgrades. And although it feels [like] everyone will say the same thing, ours have really helped us this weekend, so I’m happy to get it done for the team.“
Norris kept “pushing” the limits despite comfortable lead
Although it may have looked like a nice and easy race from the outside, beating Mercedes for the first time in 2026, the McLaren driver revealed he was still pushing and finding the limits of the race track despite his comfortable gap out in front – which could be seen on the last lap, as the broadcast showed the Briton sliding his way through turns 11 and 12, on his way to Sprint victory around Miami GP for the second consecutive season:
“It was hot out there, sweaty,” he said. “I was still pushing, trying to find that balance between pushing and also being quite relaxed and not making mistakes. Good start to the weekend, now we gotta do it all over again.
“Not too many” setup changes coming for qualifying and the main race
When quizzed on whether there are any setup changes he and McLaren will make ahead of the crucial F1 qualifying session for the main race at the 2026 Miami GP, Norris admitted that there’s no reason to change something that has “worked so far”, and explained that he expects minor refinements only:
“Probably not too many [adjustments on the car ahead of qualifying],” Norris said. “If it worked, and if it’s not broken, [don’t fix it].
“It’s worked so far. We’ll probably change a couple of things, there’s a couple of things I wanted to be different yesterday that we’ll adjust, so hopefully we’ll have a little bit more to come.
“But the others will too, so we’ll just keep our heads down and keep pushing.”
