Harry Benjamin rates Antonelli, Verstappen and Leclerc after Miami Grand Prix chaos

Kimi Antonelli left Miami with more than a race win. By taking pole at the Miami International Autodrome and converting it into victory, the Mercedes driver extended his points lead over George Russell and turned a chaotic weekend into a clear championship signal.

Miami, which joined the Formula 1 calendar in 2022 as the second US race after Austin, delivered a race that kept the front-runners under pressure from the opening corner. Antonelli, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc were locked in a three-way fight into Turn 1, and the opening laps quickly separated contenders from those left managing damage. Verstappen spun out shortly after the start, a costly error for Red Bull in a race where track position mattered from the outset. Antonelli held firm under pressure and sealed his third consecutive win of the season. Formula 1 said he became the first driver in F1 history to win his first three races from his first three pole positions.

Leclerc’s afternoon followed a different arc. He had looked sharp enough to be in the conversation after qualifying strongly, and his pace had already shown in the Miami Sprint, where Lando Norris led a McLaren one-two with Oscar Piastri second and Leclerc third. But the grand prix exposed how quickly Miami punished mistakes. Leclerc was caught up in the start-line scrap, then his race deteriorated further with a final-lap spin. He later said the incident was “all on me”. FIA final classification documents showed he received a 20-second time penalty, converted from a drive-through penalty, for leaving the track without a justifiable reason multiple times, which pushed him down the order after 57 laps.

That combination of results made Miami more than a weekend of highlights. Mercedes gained the clearest lift through Antonelli’s win and the points buffer it created. McLaren showed race-winning pace through Norris in the sprint and pressure on Antonelli in the grand prix. Ferrari came away with evidence of speed, but not the discipline to convert it into a clean Sunday result. Red Bull, meanwhile, faced another reminder that Verstappen cannot afford rare mistakes when the margins at the front are this tight. Harry Benjamin’s ratings reflected the same larger truth: Miami was not just a scorecard, but a snapshot of who is rising, who is underperforming, and how fragile the championship picture can become in one error-prone afternoon.