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Jolyon Palmer has shared his theory on Kimi Antonelli’s resurgence in qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix, highlighting how the young Italian’s data shows that Mercedes copied McLaren’s energy deployment trick from Sprint qualifying.
McLaren left Mercedes engineers with red faces after Lando Norris took pole position in qualifying for the Miami GP Sprint race, and the reigning world champion backed it up with a convincing victory on Saturday afternoon.
However, the tale of qualifying for Sunday’s Grand Prix belonged to Kimi Antonelli, who secured his third consecutive pole position of 2026. The championship leader now has his sights on a third victory of the campaign, to further bolster his lead in the F1 standings.
Four different teams in the top spots in qualifying for the Miami GP… But who’s taking the win? 🏆
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In a head-to-head comparison between Norris’ pole lap for the Sprint and Antonelli’s effort on Friday afternoon, it appeared as if McLaren had set up the MCL40 to deliver more electrical power in the first sector of the circuit.
Mercedes seemingly did the opposite, which was understood to be the difference in lap times. Jolyon Palmer has now detailed how the Brackley-based engineers took inspiration from their papaya-adorned rivals to ensure they were back on top ahead of the Grand Prix.
- READ MORE: Kimi Antonelli beats Max Verstappen to Miami Grand Prix pole as George Russell fails to perform
Jolyon Palmer reveals how Mercedes turned Miami GP woes around from Kimi Antonelli’s quali data
During F1TV’s analysis of qualifying at the Miami International Autodrome, Palmer revealed what he had taken away from looking at Antonelli’s qualifying data.
The former Renault F1 driver said, “I could see that there was a deployment difference from the Mercedes’ yesterday compared to the Mercedes’ today.
“They were deploying a lot more in the first sector, whereas yesterday, they were just harvesting a lot more energy between [turns] three and four to use on the long straight.
“This time they were deploying, and they were really quick in that first sector, and that’s more what McLaren were doing yesterday. So I wonder if Mercedes hadn’t optimised, which is strange because it’s what they’ve been so good at doing in the early races.
Antonelli is off to a legendary start in 2026 🔥 Where will he cement himself amongst the sports icons?
He joins Senna and Schumacher as the only F1 drivers to secure their first three poles consecutively
“But on a Sprint weekend, they’ve only got one practice, and haven’t really got too much time to look around at what everyone else is doing. I wonder if they’ve just tweaked that and found just a little bit of performance on the straight.
“Lando obviously thinks he’s driving well in the corners, but when you have a sprint weekend, you have the complexity of these cars. There’s just a little bit of where you deploy your energy that’s still making a difference.”
- READ MORE: Martin Brundle worried by McLaren’s ‘bizarre’ Miami GP qualifying after Lando Norris’ Sprint win
Kimi Antonelli has joined Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna in rare F1 feat
Antonelli’s clinching of three consecutive front-of-the-pack starts to open his pole position account has put him amongst the sport’s biggest legends. Both Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher achieved the same feat at the start of their highly successful careers.
Interestingly, Senna also claimed his first pole in the second race of his sophomore season. The Brazilian took his first of 65 in Portugal, before following it up in San Marino and Monaco for Lotus during the 1985 campaign, but went on to win only one of them.
In Schumacher’s case, he had to wait until his 1994 title-winning campaign to start from the first grid slot. He broke his duck at Monaco that year, ahead of his ensuing pole positions at the Spanish and Canadian Grands Prix.
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