The Grand Prix in Miami was eventful as soon as the lights went out. The start shook up the order and so did a safety car and different strategies, but it in the end it was Kimi Antonelli who emerged on top, joined on the podium by McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri

In line with Pirelli's optimum strategy calculation, nearly all cars started on medium compound tyres. Hadjar, starting from the pitlane after disqualification from qualifying opted for the hardest compound tyre despite the track being a lot cooler than on Saturday.

Everybody completed their installation laps well, so all were ready to take the start. When the lights went out it was clear that obody really managed to close the gap with Ferrari's impressive race starts as Leclerc launched to the front right away. Antonelli lost out and and then outbraked hismself, going wide through Turn 1 and eventually emerged in second place.

Verstappen also locked up while braking for Turn 1 and then ended up spinning in Turn 3, losing numerous positions, ending up behind Lawson in 9th. Norris and Piastri happily took the opportunity to take 3rd and 4th even though Russell would soon pass Piastri to move up into 4th.

Hamilton took 6th place ahead of Colapinto while Verstappen went on to fight a dense pack of cars that was further contact throughout the first lap until Verstappen managed to move up into 8th, gradually pulling away from Lawson in the next few laps.

Meanwhile up in front, Antonelli closed the initial gap to Leclerc, taking the lead on the back straight of lap 4 and keeping first place as they passed on the starting line. The move brought Norris in striking range as well, but rather than him striking it was Leclerc who managed to get into first place again on the next straight. Things got worse for Antonelli as he dropped behind Norris at Turn 1.

All that happened while Hadjar and Gasly crashed out, immediately triggering race control to deploy the safety car. The two crashed out at different points of the track with about 20 seconds apart. Hadjar first clipped the chicane ever so slightly, broke the left steering arm and ended up in the next barrier while Gasly attempted a pass outside of Lawson at Turn 17, only to be bumped out, flipping the Alpine and leaving it stranded on the tyre barriers. Lawson also quietly returned to the pits to retire the car.

The safety car resulted in a pitstop call for Verstappen to switch to hard tyres - which were working well for Hadjar. The Dutchman duly complied, more than eager to get rid of the flat spotted tyres from that early spin. The stop dropped him down to 16th, between Stroll and Alonso.

While the safety car was deployed, Nico Hulkenberg also drove into the pitlane with an apparent technical issue. He was pulled back into the garage and retired from the race.

On lap 12 the race was on again after a seemingly endless safety car period. Leclerc opted to go very slow on the back straight and packed up the field closely before launching it out of Turn 17. It didn't change the race leader but it did enable Piastri to get past Russell once again with the latter fuming on the radio "I'm in the wrong start mode guys, keep an eye out".

Half a lap later Norris seemed much faster than Leclerc and soon enough took the lead. This of course enabled Antonelli to try to overtake on Leclerc too, and so he did, this time good enough to maintain the position throughout the next lap.

Two laps later Stroll made a mistake and dropped behind Bottas and Alonso to last while Leclerc briefly lost 4th to Piastri, recovering it soon after. Leclerc had lost 1.5s in the first sector after saving a hot moment of oversteer. It was either that or park it in the barrier.

As rain closed in to the track, Verstappen had some tense fights but proved great confidence on braking to overtake one car after another, ending up in 8th by lap 20, moving up into 7th by passing Colapinto. In fact, this ended up in 6th as Russell was pitted at the same time with a clear message "out lap critical".

Following Russell's switch to hard tyres, Leclerc was called in too. The Ferrari driver returned to the track on hard tyres as well, but saw Russell steam past as he emerged back out on track. As they started to carve their way past two Haas drivers and Albon the chance of rain seemed to reduce from "heavy" to "a few spots at Turn 7 and 8".

Indeed, those drops emerged, but it wasn't enough to disturb any car or driver. Therefore it was time for pitstops. Antonelli was first, and just like with Russell's stop, that gained them a position as Norris ended up behind the Mercedes after he pitted the next lap. The duo ended up right behind Verstappen. The latter inherited the lead when Piastri was pitted another lap later, bringing a situation where the top three were within 8 tenths of each other.

After Antonelli successfully defended his position at Turn 1 the Italian went on to pass Verstappen later that lap with Norris following through at Turn 1 of the next lap.

By lap 33, Antonelli had 1.3 seconds in hand over Norris with Verstappen trailing the Norris by 5 seconds. Leclerc, who had passed Russell on lap 31, followed another 8 seconds further behind, just ahead of Russell and Piastri.

As Russell had his hands full trying to keep Piastri behind before eventually losing out, Antonelli saw Norris within 1 second after a gear shifting issue. The gap between the first to remained close but stabilised around 1.5 seconds.

Behind them, Leclerc passed Verstappen for third 10 laps from the end with Piastri soon after looking for a chance as well, ensuring 4th position one lap later thanks to a very clean pass on the long straight after pretty much shadowing the Red Bull for half a lap. As Verstappen trundled on on badly worn hard tyres,

Russell also closed in and ended up in striking distance 2 laps from the end of the Grand Prix. When Russell attempted his first pass Verstappen opted to defend by going off line, a move thet perhaps surprised Russell as the Mercedes driver touched Verstappen's tyre, leading to some minor front wing damage that caused it to scrape somewhat on the ground.

In the penultimate lap Russell briefly got past but Verstappen came back. Same story the next lap, but this time Russell held on to the position. Up ahead, Leclerc spun off in his fight with Piastri and had a puncture following his touch with the barriers, forcing him to limp to the end where Russell and Verstappen got past him meters before crossing the finish line. That was 3rd to 6th in a single lap for the Ferrari driver.