I'll be honest with you. I went on record last week and predicted that Kimi Antonelli would not finish in the top ten at the Miami Grand Prix. I also predicted Pierre Gasly would be my biggest surprise of the weekend — finishing fourth. Antonelli won the race. Gasly's car left the ground, landed upside down, and he didn't finish at all. So before anything else: I'm sorry, and I deserve everything that's coming to me.
On the plus side, we're all back. All four of us. Simultaneously. For the first time since Episode One, it's a genuine full house — Digby included — and if nothing else, that made this episode worth doing regardless of what happened on track. Seven episodes of excuses, absent hosts, and the distant promise of an album that still hasn't arrived. The gang is finally, properly, here.
And they picked a good one to come back for. Miami 2026 is already being called one of the best races the venue has ever hosted — possibly the best race of the season so far. Antonelli, nineteen years old, pole to flag for the third consecutive time. Norris in second and furious about it, convinced the strategic call that handed Antonelli the win was wrong. Piastri third, fighting Leclerc in the final stint in a battle that had genuine quality. A resurgent Red Bull. A Williams double-points haul that nobody predicted. And Gasly's car upside down on lap one, which at the time was horrifying and, once everyone was confirmed safe, became the kind of image that follows a race weekend around forever.
But the story of the weekend — the one that nobody quite saw coming — happened before a single car left the garage. Mohammed Ben Sulayem, FIA President, arrived in Miami having spent weeks insisting the 2026 regulations were working, the racing was improving, and the future of Formula 1 was bright. Then, standing in the paddock, he announced that V8 engines with minimal electrification are coming back to F1 by 2031. V8s. Coming back. The noise, the weight reduction, the whole thing — all but admitting out loud that the current era got it wrong.
MBS stood in the paddock and told us the future was going to be great. Twenty-four hours later, this sport accidentally produced something pretty great in the present. What a crazy sport this is.
Off track, this week's What's Verstappenin brought two stories that cut a little deeper than the usual paddock noise. Alex Zanardi — Italian racing driver, CART legend, double amputee, Paralympic gold medallist, and by any measure one of the most remarkable humans this sport has ever produced — passed away on Thursday. He was 59. Antonelli dedicated the win to him. We gave it the time it deserved. And then Valtteri Bottas, who started his 250th Grand Prix here in Miami, published a personal essay detailing eating disorders, burnout, a racing heart at 4am, and the paddock culture that made him hide all of it. "In the paddock, you can't show any weakness." It is a remarkable read, and one that deserves more attention than it's getting.
Plus: Fernando Alonso still isn't retiring. Obviously. The quiz returns with all three players for only the second time this season. And the predictions scorecard settles a debt that I have been quietly dreading since Sunday afternoon.
Next stop: Canada. But first — all of this.