Will Saturday be Kimi Antonelli’s day at the Miami Grand Prix?

MIAMI, Florida — As dawn breaks over the Miami International Autodrome, and a sleepy paddock comes to life, there is one question on the mind of everyone arriving for Saturday at the Miami Grand Prix.

Will this be young Kimi Antonelli’s breakout day?

The Mercedes phenom stunned the grid, and himself, Friday with a thunderous lap at the end of SQ3, securing his first pole position in any format in Formula 1. The lap made F1 history on two fronts: Not only did it make Antonelli the youngest driver to secure pole position in any F1 format, but it was the fastest lap in the history of the Miami Grand Prix.

“I’m feeling over the moon. I did not expect it, but I was feeling good in the car,” said Antonelli after his incredible performance.

“I was able to improve lap by lap and find that consistency, and that lap came all together. I’m super, super happy with that, and now we will enjoy this moment a little bit more, but as well I want to focus on tomorrow because I really want to try and repeat myself.”

However, the bigger challenge for Antonelli comes today.

Starting alongside him on the front row will be Oscar Piastri, with his McLaren teammate Lando Norris right behind Antonelli in P3. While Antonelli extracted just enough out of the W16 to secure pole position, keeping the two McLarens at bay today will be a much tougher task. As F1’s race pace simulations show, the MCL39 has a slight edge over the W16:

F1.com

In addition, Piastri was on track to take pole for himself in SQ3, until a slight lockup at the end of his last lap opened the door for Antonelli.

But that was just one lap, can Antonelli slam the door over the McLaren duo over 19 laps?

It may come down to the start, and what happens into Turn 1. As all the drivers have been saying this week — and as we have seen throughout this season — running in clean air is a huge advantage for the driver at the front of the field. Take the only other F1 Sprint race so far this season, which came at the Chinese Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton delivered a surprising pole position of his own, and running up front in the clean air enabled him to finish six seconds ahead of Piastri, and almost ten seconds ahead of Max Verstappen.

If Antonelli can manage to keep the lead over the opening lap, he will have a good shot at stunning the field yet again here this Saturday in Miami.

But if the McLarens can work around him on the opening lap, it might be their race for the taking.