Miami in F1 week is a place where sunscreen is a religion, mojitos are stronger than relationships, white suits and shoes are the uniform and thongs aren’t worn on feet. And last Sunday, Miami gave us everything Formula 1 thinks we need right now: celebrities who no one has ever heard of doing grid walks, a lot of biff – and $140 hot dogs.
Twenty readers (now including one son) and two friends, F1 has finally brought back the biff. Oh, that sweet wholesome biff.
They bought back the muscle, the fist, and the knuckle.
Jandal wearer, Liam Lawson, gave snail eater, Pierre Gasly, a nudge on his back tyre causing the French lad’s car to roll over. Both Pete and Liam retired. And this was just after Mad Max spun up the road from the start and his teammate Isack Hadjar found the wall of the chicane.
Anyway, stop being so superficial John!
But look beneath the entertainment, the noise, the overtakes and the theatre and you’ll see this is a sport that has spent more than 10 years engineering itself into a corner.
Go past the basket weaver talk about sustainability, electrification and the future of mobility. The reality is simple.
The cars are too complicated, the racing is too artificial, and the drivers know it.
Piastri calls it out
As our own Oscar Piastri said in an icy, cynical remark while looking at the video replay of his Leclerc fight as an example of how little a defending driver can do once a car behind gets a run:
“I overtake him, sweet. Nothing I could do … trying to defend in these cars … they’re half a second behind but catching you so fast.”
Piastri is arguing that the boost and energy rules create huge closing speeds so once a move starts, the lead car is a sitting duck.
Push too hard, deploy your energy at the wrong moment, and the car punishes you for doing the very thing Formula 1 was built on: going flat out.
That’s not evolution.
That’s a problem.
Even the FIA gets it. Now even the F1 gnomes of 8 Place de la Concorde, Paris, get it.
The FIA is talking about bringing back V8 engines by the end of the decade. Lighter, louder, simpler. The exact opposite of where the sport has spent 10 years heading. Which raises a fairly obvious question: What exactly was the point of the last decade?
A decent race
Unfortunately, the truth is Miami was a half-decent race.
Not as decent as next weekend’s MX-5 Cup but, hey, not everyone can have a race by a strongly perfumed waste transfer station.
The Miami race was good because of the on-track talent.
Antonelli, 19, won his third race this season.
No, he’s not the youngest to win an F1 race. That was 18-year-old Mad Max. But Anto’s already operating at a different level to most of the field.
In Miami, the real difference wasn’t the car.
It was the driver.
Motor Sport’s Mark Hughes made the point neatly: the gaps between teammates were often larger than the gaps between teams. Antonelli versus Russell. Norris versus Piastri. Leclerc versus Hamilton.
Same machinery.
Different outcomes.
Piastri remains the quiet benchmark. Fast, composed, rarely flustered. The kind of driver who extracts what’s available without turning the whole thing into theatre.
But even he is working within a system that doesn’t reward the best instincts.
Despite the 360 at the start, Mad Max was one of the three best drivers out on the track.
And here’s the kicker: there’s a clause in MM’s contract that says if he’s not top two by mid-season, he can leave.
Which brings us to Mercedes.
If MM becomes available to Toto (not Albo’s dog but the Mercedes-Benz Motorsport boss) you take him.
So, who goes?
Last year the answer was easy: Antonelli.
But this year?
Gorgeous George is now the one under pressure.
Ferrari prints money
Talking of V8s: while the rest of the industry wrestles with EVs, software bugs and existential dread, Ferrari just keeps pumping cash. How was Q1 2026? $3.05bn revenue; $905m EBIT; 29.7 per cent margin; $1.08bn free cash flow.
Given most car companies are going belly up, even Australian analysts wouldn’t complain about these numbers.
China’s fastest cars
If you want to understand where the industry is going, forget Europe.
Look at last week’s Peking International Automotive Exhibition. It’s the world’s largest auto show: 80,000sq m; 181 world premieres; 1.28 million visitors and 1451 cars. Of course, with traditional Chinese cuisine including McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and Costa.
And hypercars doing 0-100 in under a second. Like the Yangwang U9. Almost 2220kW and 500km/h. Only 30 will be made, just $6m each.
How much?
While the future goes electric, the past is getting very expensive. At Villa d’Este this month: a Ferrari Daytona SP3 for about $14m and a Nissan R34 GT-R nudging $1.6m. Yup, Broad Arrow is selling the ultimate Nissan R34 GTR collection, or “Godzilla” to its friends. Includes a rare midnight purple 1999 Skyline GT-R and an extremely desirable GT-R CRS by NISMO.
Book of the week
Our book of the week – well actually the last four months – is Destination Moon, the autobiography of F1 engineer and French bun maker, Kate Reid.
It’s a book about fast cars, slow mental health recovery and passion. So, something for everyone.
For once, I actually read the whole book (out loud) and can recommend it on all three grounds: F1 engineering, anorexia and croissants.