Miami race brought forward by three hours because of storm threat

The Miami Grand Prix has been moved forward by three hours to 18:00 BST (13:00 local time) because of the threat of thunderstorms.

And world champion Lando Norris says the Formula 1 drivers will be “thrown in at the deep end” by the expected wet weather on Sunday.

The McLaren driver is one of the vast majority of the grid who have not yet experienced the 2026 cars in wet conditions, following the biggest rule change in the sport’s history.

The massive amount of electrical power available in the new engines, and the issues teams have been having deploying it in a predictable manner, threaten “a bit more chaos,” as Norris puts it.

“I don’t know how wet it’s going to be,” said Norris, who qualified fourth behind Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. “It’s going to be a big challenge on race day for everyone to perform, find the limit.

“Obviously, you can’t afford to make any mistakes. We’re thrown in the deep end, but that’s what we’re here to do. I look forward to it.”

The decision to move the start time of the race was made by commercial rights holder F1 and governing body the FIA on Saturday evening in Miami.

A statement from F1 and the FIA said the decision was made because “the weather forecast (predicts) heavier rainstorms later in the afternoon close to the original planned race start time”.

The statement added: “This decision has been taken to ensure the least amount of disruption to the race, and to ensure the maximum possible window to complete the grand prix in the best conditions and to prioritise the safety of drivers, fans, teams and staff.”

The aim is to try to finish the race before the worst of the weather arrives, which is forecast to be at about 15:00 local time (20:00 BST), one hour before the original start time.

That heavy rain, once it starts, is expected to stay for hours, so the fear was that sticking with the original start time would have meant the race could not be run.

Moving it forward, the race is still likely to be wet, but the hope is the conditions will be acceptable for running the cars.

F1 cars do run in the rain, but the limiting factor is always visibility from the vast amounts of spray thrown up by the cars, as well as aquaplaning if the amounts of standing water are significant enough to force the low-running cars to effectively float on top of water on the track.

Norris’ team-mate Oscar Piastri added: “It’s obviously going to be a voyage into the unknown for everybody. When it rains here, it normally is pretty torrential, so it could be an interesting day.

“It’s just going to be what happens with the power-unit, how you get power, where you get power is in a computer’s hands.

“Just making sure that that does roughly what we expect. Obviously, the margin for error when it’s wet is significantly smaller.”

The forecast for rain comes after an unpredictable weekend in which the form book has fluctuated.

McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari all brought major upgrades to their cars for this race while Mercedes have only minimal developments; they are saving their big step for the next race in Canada, where McLaren will have further new parts.

McLaren dominated the sprint race with Norris leading a one-two ahead of Piastri, only to fall back in grand prix qualifying.

Meanwhile, Verstappen hailed Red Bull’s step forward after being a second off the pace at the last race in Japan as “incredible”.

But the rain throws the form book out of the window because no one has any idea how the cars perform compared to each other in such conditions, especially as so few drivers have even driven these new cars in the rain.

On top of that, rain always adds an extra factor of randomisation, as well as the heightened risk of accidents and incidents.