Miami Grand Prix

The 2026 Miami Grand Prix at the Miami International Autodrome starts at 15:00 EDT (UTC-4) on Sunday 3 May. The 5.412 km circuit runs 57 laps for a race distance of 308.48 km.

This is a sprint weekend. Saturday's sprint race goes at 12:00 EDT (16:00 GMT), awarding points to the top eight finishers before the main race on Sunday.

The Miami International Autodrome wraps around the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, and the stadium's presence is not incidental. The circuit actually passes underneath the stadium's south end zone structure at Turn 6, one of the more surreal pieces of infrastructure in Formula 1. The long back straight into Turn 17 is the overtaking highway, with a DRS zone long enough to give chasing drivers a genuine run. Turn 11 through 12 is the circuit's technical heart: a slow chicane where braking commitment and car rotation determine lap time through the whole middle sector.

Miami in May means track surface temperatures that regularly hit 55 degrees Celsius. At those temperatures, tire compounds that felt stable in practice begin to degrade by the second stint, turning every pit wall call into a judgment about how much life remains in rubber that is visually intact but thermally finished. It is one of the reasons Miami has produced four different race winners across four editions.

The race that defined the venue arrived in 2024. Lando Norris took a dominant victory in a McLaren that had found something no other team could match, emerging from the strategic battle to win by over 7 seconds over Verstappen. It was the moment the paddock accepted that McLaren had genuinely closed the performance gap. For a race that critics had initially dismissed as a marketing exercise, Miami 2024 was a credibility event.

When is the Miami Grand Prix? Lights out at 15:00 EDT on Sunday May 3 is 20:00 BST and 21:00 CEST, putting European viewers in comfortable Sunday evening territory. The Saturday sprint at 12:00 EDT is 17:00 BST and 18:00 CEST. Australian and Japanese fans face the least friendly timing: 05:00 Monday AEST and 04:00 Monday JST. Check United States time for the exact start where you are.