Miami Grand Prix Preview: Formula One’s Trip to South Beach Will Be a Star-Studded One

The sixth race of the F1 season will take place Sunday at 4 p.m. ET. Verstappen, Norris and Piastri are the favorites.

Oscar Piastri of Australia drives the McLaren MCL39 Mercedes during sprint qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Miami at Miami International Autodrome on May 2, 2025. Clive Rose/Getty Images

The Miami Grand Prix isn’t Formula One’s most prestigious race—that’s the Monaco GP, which is part of the Triple Crown of Motorsport.

Nor is the Miami GP held at the most iconic venue in F1—that’s the Monza Circuit in Italy, which has hosted a record 74 Grands Prix.

But no race on the Formula One calendar generates more buzz, especially in North America, than the Miami Grand Prix. The 2025 edition, the fourth, will be held on Sunday in the shadows of Hard Rock Stadium at Miami International Autodrome.

Part of the allure of the race has nothing to do with the race itself, just as part of the appeal of the Super Bowl has nothing to do with the actual game. The Miami GP is an event often loaded with as many celebrities as you would see at a Super Bowl party. There have been just three previous Miami races, but the likes of Michael Jordan, Kendall Jenner, Patrick Mahomes, Tom Cruise, and Elon Musk have graced the grid. This year’s event has already seen Rob Gronkowski and Lindsey Vonn take in practice sessions ahead of Sunday’s race.

As for the actual race, it was won by current F1 king Max Verstappen in each of the first two years, before Lando Norris prevailed in 2024, with Verstappen taking second. Charles Leclerc is the only other driver with multiple podiums (two) since the inaugural race.

The 2025 Formula One season hasn’t seen the dominance from Verstappen that we’ve seen over the last four years, when he won the Drivers’ Championship in each season and won at least nine races every year. He enters the Miami GP 2025 with just one victory and is third in the F1 standings. Oscar Piastri, who has won three of the five races, is in first place, while Norris, the only other driver besides Piastri or Verstappen to win this year, sits in second place. That gives the British team McLaren the top two spots in the Formula One Driver standings and the top spot in the Constructors’ Championship standings.

Those three drivers are far and away the biggest favorites to win on Sunday, with Norris and Piastri installed as co-favorites. Verstappen, who once proclaimed that sleep is the most important thing for his performance, may have a little less of that once the race begins, as he announced on social media on Friday that he just became a first-time father.

Any mention of Formula One seemingly has to mention the legendary Lewis Hamilton, whose fame as a record-tying seven-time F1 champion is a big draw for all of those celebrities who show up at the race. Hamilton joined Ferrari this season after a dozen years with Mercedes but sits at a middling seventh place in the standings, which is also where he finished last season.

Hamilton, who last won the Drivers’ Championship in 2020, winning 11 races that year, is a shell of his former self and has just two victories over the last four years combined. He’s been remarkably consistent in his Miami GP career, though, finishing in sixth place in all three prior starts at the track.

Another notable driver, and one who could surprise many on Sunday, is Carlos Sainz. He’s near the bottom of the standings due to two retirements across his first four starts, but had a season-best finish in his last start. Sainz has notched top-five finishes in every Miami race thus far and is one of five active drivers to ever lead a lap at the Autodrome. Replaced by Hamilton with Ferrari this season, Sainz drives for Williams Racing.

A driver who won’t be part of this year’s Miami Grand Prix is Miami native Logan Sargeant. He competed in the last two editions of the race but was replaced by his team, Williams Racing, at the end of last year. Sargeant was the only American driver in Formula One last year, so the 2025 Miami GP will not have its hometown favorite. In fact, it won’t have a single American behind the wheel.

Miami International Autodrome is a temporary circuit surrounding Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins. Each year, the venue is assembled just weeks before the race and then taken down afterwards. At 3.363 miles, it is the 10th-longest F1 circuit, and just six of the other 23 F1 tracks feature more turns than the 18 in Miami. Drivers will race a total of 57 laps, covering 191.584 miles overall.

Formula One clearly prioritizes the Miami Grand Prix by its placement in the F1 calendar each year. There is no F1 race the week before the Miami, nor is there one the week after, putting all of the focus on Miami. Just four other races on the Formula One schedule have that type of setup as the F1 series pulls out all the stops to increase its footprint in the United States after doing so in many international locales.

The Miami Grand Prix is one of three F1 Grands Prix that take place in the United States. That adds to the charm of the race—Americans tend to savor races when they don’t get to host them that often. That contrasts with domestic motorsport racing bodies such as NASCAR and IndyCar Series, whose entire seasons take place at North American venues.

The other two U.S.-based Formula One races are the United States Grand Prix, set for Oct. 19 in Austin, Texas, and the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which will take place Nov. 22 on the Vegas Strip.

The lights go out for the Miami Grand Prix 2025 at 4 p.m. ET on Sunday. Eighteen-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes will start on the pole.