Potential Sunday Thunderstorm Set to Throw a Curve Ball at the Miami Grand Prix

As noted, only a few of the 22 drivers have driven a 2026 car in the wet, and only in testing—and thus in a non-competitive situation. Mercedes and Racing Bulls did a little wet running at their private shakedowns, and Red Bull and Ferrari ran on a wet day at the Barcelona pre-season test that other teams opted to skip precisely because bad weather was coming in. Even for those guys, however, that was a while ago, and in the very early days of these cars.

Then there's Isack Hadjar, Arvid Lindblad, Liam Lawson, and Lewis Hamilton, all of whom did some 2027 Pirelli wet weather testing during the spring break. The first three ran at a soaking Suzuka on the Tuesday and Wednesday after the Japanese GP, while Hamilton was at an artificially-soaked Fiorano on April 9-10. All four tried both full wets and intermediates, and while much of the running was devoted to Pirelli’s 2027 prototypes that aren’t identical to the tires on hand this weekend, they still gave the drivers a handle on how these cars behave in the rain.

Those who have sampled a 2026 car in the wet make it clear that it’s a challenge. "I've definitely done more wet testing than probably ever before,” Hamilton said in Miami on Thursday. “I had a whole day in Barcelona, which was not fun, and then I had two days of wet testing two weeks ago. But it was good to be able to work with Pirelli and have some conversations with them of how we can improve the tire. In general, the drivers do complain a lot about them and the grip that we have, and we always want to be improving.”

“I experienced myself quite a bit of mileage in the rain so farm and it’s been very tricky with the inter tires to put any temperature,” said Hadjar. “Once there’s quite a lot of water, it feels like the wet is immediately the tire you want to race on because it’s very hard to put any temp. Of course, it’s not ideal to have a first race straight away in the rain. You would like to have a read, maybe even in qualifying, but going straight away to rain would be fun…”

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As part of the recent rules update package, the FIA agreed to increase tire blanket temperatures for inters. In addition, maximum electrical deployment will be reduced, which the FIA says will result in “limiting torque and improving car control in low-grip conditions.” Those two changes should at least make life a little bit easier for the wheelmen.

“I drove the car when we did the shakedown in Silverstone in the wet, and definitely, it was very tricky,” Antonelli noted. “Although now with the changes, they clipped the power to 250 kilowatts for the wet and no boost, so that’s already a step forward in that regard. Definitely, it’s going to be very interesting, because there’s so much unknown in the wet at the moment, especially no one is really used the inter tires. So we don’t know how it’s going to feel, how much grip there will be, especially with the new regulations.”

All of the drivers mentioned above have at least done some laps, and thus have got some idea of what to expect; the others will potentially only have a few laps to the grid on Sunday with which to get some sort of feel for how these cars behave and where the limits are.

“There's a certain amount of things that some of us have just never experienced yet,” said Lando Norris. “These cars, they're fun, but difficult to drive in terms of the handling characteristics. So it's going to be a handful. Inter tires, at times, are difficult to get up the temperature and things. A lot of it's going to be just, let's see how it goes today kind of thing when we get to Sunday. But it's my job to go out and perform, and adapt to the situation that I'm in at the time.”

Carlos Sainz recalled that during the brief wet running in 2025, it was clear that Miami is particularly tricky. “As we saw last year, on the straights, a lot of standing water here,” he said. “It’s a super-flat track, the water stays on the surface—and whether that’s going to be safe enough or not, with the walls close to you and the visibility that we have with these cars, it is certainly going to be a concern. I hope that we can take all the appropriate actions for it. We can have a good show, a good race.”

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As Sainz pointed out, straightline mode [SLM] in the wet only the front wings fold down and not the rears as well, as is the case in the dry, so that will be a novel experience for most. “That, I really don’t understand why we have that if it doesn’t reduce the drag much. So yeah, a few things to analyze, to put together, if Sunday is going to be wet—maybe to discuss in the drivers’ briefing, so we can have all clear in our heads what we should expect and what we should go racing with.”

It promises to be an interesting Sunday. Let’s just hope that we don’t end up with a third cancelled race in 2026…

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