By Madeline Coleman and Luke Smith
In just his sixth race weekend, Kimi Antonelli secured his first sprint pole position — setting a lap time 0.045 seconds faster than McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
Lando Norris rounded out the top three finishers for sprint qualifying yesterday at Hard Rock Stadium.
While it is not an official F1 pole position for the Mercedes driver, it is still a monumental moment for an 18-year-old tasked with making his name at Mercedes after the departure of Lewis Hamilton.
Antonelli is the youngest driver to head a race grid in F1 history in any format. And it was one of the fastest laps clocked at Miami International Autodrome — a 1:26.482s.
Max Verstappen established the lap record at 1:29.708s in 2023, which remains the official fastest lap as such times are set during race conditions. But Antonelli’s time eclipses the previous unofficial track record of 1:26.814s that Verstappen set in Q2 in qualifying for the 2023 race here. Antonelli said:
💬 “It was a very intense qualifying. I felt really good since this morning and I felt confident going into qualifying. The last lap was mighty. I put basically everything together. It came all very nicely. Really happy to get the first pole.”
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F1 teenager Kimi Antonelli claims shock Miami sprint race pole for Mercedes