Lando Norris
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Despite missing out on his first Grand Prix victory of the season in Miami by just over two seconds, Lando Norris impressed James Hinchcliffe with his cool and collected McLaren team radio messages during the battle with Kimi Antonelli.
At the site where he secured his maiden Grand Prix victory in F1 back in 2024, Norris was excruciatingly close to claiming his first longer-format race win of the 2026 term.
The reigning world champion managed to get the better of Antonelli and Charles Leclerc in the opening laps of Sunday’s race, and controlled the pace following the safety car restart.
Is Kimi Antonelli the best teenager F1 has ever seen?
However, quick thinking by the Mercedes pit wall prevailed, with the championship leader inheriting the lead through the use of an undercut.
Norris remained within striking distance of Antonelli for the ensuing 29 laps, but the Mercedes star coolly converted his third consecutive pole position into a three-peat of Grand Prix wins to extend his lead in the title race.
- READ MORE: Martin Brundle says Lando Norris is finally ‘wise’ to Max Verstappen’s wheel-to-wheel tactics
James Hinchcliffe impressed with Lando Norris’ ‘dead cool’ team radio at Miami GP
During a post-Miami Grand Prix episode of the F1 Nation podcast, pundit James Hinchcliffe shared his thoughts on Antonelli’s win over the weekend in Florida.
The Canadian began by praising the Mercedes star’s composure while being chased down by a world champion, before noting the mentality that Norris showed during his radio messages to the McLaren pit wall.
It wasn’t a 14-second gap as he had in Suzuka; he didn’t have the pace advantage that he had at some of those other races,” Hinchcliffe said of Antonelli. “This was incredible pressure from a world champion at a track that’s very easy to make a mistake.
Here’s how the championship standings look after the Miami GP! 🏆
“That small mistake he made in China, that would have been a race-ending mistake in Miami. So, you look at how composed he was at one point, complaining about something with the paddles on the steering wheel.
“Maybe the heart rate went up a little bit, certainly the tone of voice went up a little bit, but he kept it calm. Lando, meanwhile, behind, his radio transmissions were dead cool. I mean, that’s a champion’s transmission.”
Following the chequered flag on Sunday afternoon in Miami, Norris expressed his disappointment at not claiming his first 25-point haul for the season.
The 26-year-old told his race engineer, Will Joseph, “Yeah, well done. F— sake. How did we not win this? We should have won, guys. Good try, good effort. It’s nice to see the progress, well done.
“Let’s keep pushing, guys. We can get back to winning. We can make it easier for ourselves. Thank you very much.”
- READ MORE: Lando Norris hints McLaren gained seven-tenths on Mercedes with mighty Miami Grand Prix upgrade
McLaren have finally figured out how to optimise the 2026 Mercedes engine
Norris’ P2 in Sunday’s Grand Prix came a day after he opened his race win account in 2026. The 26-year-old converted his Sprint race pole position into victory on Saturday morning, which was aided by McLaren’s preparation of their Mercedes power unit.
It was quite the statement from the Woking-based outfit, who suffered from a multitude of issues during the first two rounds of the season.
In the midst of their slump, Juan Pablo Montoya predicted that it would only be a matter of time before McLaren were winning races again, and he certainly wasn’t wrong.
In fact, McLaren’s engine set-up was actually replicated by Mercedes engineers ahead of Grand Prix qualifying.
The Brackley-based crew took inspiration from where the MCL40 was deploying the majority of its electrical power, which was deemed to be the missing piece after Antonelli took pole for Sunday’s race with the new configuration later on in the day.
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