Three races into the 2026 Formula 1 World Championship, a nineteen-year-old named Kimi Antonelli has already won twice, leads the drivers’ standings by nine points, and is currently the most talked-about driver in a paddock full of multi-time world champions. George Russell — older, vastly more experienced, the driver who opened the season by winning the curtain-raising Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne six weeks ago — was supposed to be the overwhelming favorite for the title. Instead, he is watching his teenage teammate steal every headline going.
Mercedes’ Civil War
Make no mistake about it, much like Lewis Hamilton vs Nico Rosberg a decade ago, it’s a Mercedes civil war. Online betting sites have been hesitant to install the young star as the clear favorite for the title just yet, but they have slashed odds on him becoming the youngest driver ever dramatically. Russell was a 1/3 title favorite when he won Down Under; now, he remains the frontrunner, but he’s priced at even money, with Antonelli breathing down his neck at 11/10. He was 7/2 just a few weeks ago.
That shift from 1/3 to evens on Russell in the space of a few weeks is exactly where the expected value calculator at Thunderpick earns its keep. If you backed him in Melbourne at the shorter price, the tool can help you assess whether doubling down at evens still carries positive value — or whether the market has already corrected itself. With Antonelli now trading at 11/10, the calculator may well point you somewhere more interesting.
Now comes Miami. Round 4 of the 2026 season, and a third straight Antonelli win will surely see him installed as the championship favorite while plunging Russell into early panic. But what has the South Florida showpiece done to a championship story throughout its four previous editions? Let’s take a look.
2022: Verstappen’s Assault Begins
Here’s what people forget about the inaugural Miami Grand Prix: Max Verstappen wasn’t yet the true dominant force. In fact, he trailed Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in the championship standings, and with his Prancing Horse on pole at Hard Rock Stadium, it seemed as though the Monegasque star was about to extend his 34-point lead.
His teammate Carlos Sainz sat behind him in second on the grid, with Verstappen third. On paper, this was Ferrari’s race to lose. Then, turn 1 happened, and lose it they did.
Verstappen swept around the outside of Sainz in a move of breathtaking decisiveness, and the psychological weather immediately changed. He then hunted down Leclerc, and the two frontrunners were in a class entirely their own. Super Max found his way through on turn nine, but then the hunter became the hunted. In the end, he would hold off Leclerc to claim the win by less than four seconds, and Leclerc’s championship advantage was suddenly 19 fragile points.
What followed is the part that still makes Ferrari supporters wince. Engine failure in Spain, leading comfortably. A Monaco strategy disaster so catastrophic that it became industry shorthand for pit wall negligence. A completely avoidable crash in France — Leclerc, on his own, no contact — that gifted Verstappen points he hadn’t even needed to fight for. The Dutchman would win the title in comfortable fashion, and his reign of terror truly took hold.
2023: Perez Crumbles
Sergio Pérez had everything set up perfectly for the most important result of his career. Pole position at Miami. Championship leader and teammate Verstappen marooned in ninth after an abandoned Q3 lap. Six points separated the two Red Bull drivers heading in. A win here, and Checo leads the world championship. The path could not have been clearer.
Verstappen treated that path like a minor administrative inconvenience. He started on the hard compound, drove through traffic that would have frustrated any other driver on the grid, made his tire strategy look inevitable in retrospect, and emerged at the front before most of the paddock had fully processed how it had happened. The final gap over Pérez: 5.384 seconds. Not scraped through. Dominated. And that is exactly how the rest of the championship would play out.
Perez wouldn’t win another race all year. Verstappen would win all but one, amounting to a record-breaking 18 in total that term. He finished with more than double the amount of points of his second-place teammate at the end of the season in the most dominant championship victory of all time.
2024: Finally
By the time the 2024 Miami Grand Prix rolled around, McLaren’s Lando Norris was 109 races into his career, and he hadn’t picked up a single win. There had been plenty of opportunities, with that famous rain-soaked disaster in Russia in 2021 the best of them. But two and a half years on from that heartbreaker in Sochi, the young Brit would finally get it right in race 110.
Red Bull arrived in Florida having won four of the first five races, Verstappen 53 points clear of a chasing pack that couldn’t find a genuine answer to his pace. Norris started fifth in the McLaren — decent, not exceptional — and the opening stint ran its predictable course. Then, on lap 29, Logan Sargeant’s Williams found the barriers, the safety car was deployed, and the McLaren pit wall made the call that changed everything. Norris pitted. He emerged ahead of both Verstappen and Leclerc, visor down; the clean air stretching out ahead of him, the entire weight of 110 races pressing down on that moment. He didn’t crack. He didn’t wobble. He pulled away from the four-time world champion to win for the first time.
Norris immediately looked like a title contender, but he was unable to convert his opportunities, a mistake that Verstappen didn’t make as he ultimately claimed a fourth straight title in a simpler fashion than he had any right to. But Norris’ moment would come.
2025: Piastri Takes Command
By 2025, McLaren had become the dominant force, taking full advantage of regulation changes to build a rocket ship. Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri had claimed victories in four of the opening five races, but it was the Aussie as opposed to the more experienced Brit who had won three of them. And in Miami, he was about to rubber-stamp his championship credentials.
Verstappen took pole by less than a tenth of a second ahead of Norris. Those two nearly collided into the first corner, allowing Piastri to overtake his teammate before then hunting down the leading Red Bull. The Aussie would ultimately do exactly that, taking the lead on lap 14 and never looking back. He would claim his fourth win of the campaign, and as the campaign approached its conclusion, Piastri was well clear of both Norris and Verstappen in the standings.
Then, disaster would strike. Retirement in Azerbaijan saw Piastri lose all his momentum, allowing Norris and Verstappen to both reel him in and ultimately pass him, with his British teammate finally claiming the title on the final day of the season. Will we see more of this in the coming season? The one thing you can always be sure of in F1: it’s never predictable.
