Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli Becomes Youngest Polesitter In F1 History With Miami Sprint Race Pole

Boy, oh, boy, is the Miami Grand Prix weekend off to a hot start because we've got yourself a surprise pole sitter in the Sprint Race, and his name is Kimi Antonelli.

Now, it's no secret that Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli is something of a racing prodigy. Mercedes has known this for years, and racing fans could see it even last season when he was in Formula 2.

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This is to say that he's almost bound to qualify on pole and contend for race wins, and at some point, I just didn't think it would happen this soon or in Miami.

That's because the Miami International Autodrome is one of the tracks on the F1 schedule in which F2 doesn't race. That means that Antonelli's first time driving at the circuit was this weekend.

On top of that, it's a sprint weekend, meaning that there is only one 60-minute practice session for the entire weekend.

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All of that together is why no one really had Antonelli on the radar to win pole on Friday afternoon, but he proved everyone wrong with a stunning performance in SQ3 besting both of the championship-leading McLarens as well as reigning champ Max Verstappen and his own teammate George Russell.

The SQ3 came to an interesting end as most of the field decided to only go for one lap. The first two on track were Russell and Verstappen, with Russell's lap giving him the edge.

The rest of the top 10 opted to go for one lap, however, Verstappen did a cool-down lap and went for another run on used tires while Russell stayed in the pits hoping his time would be fast enough to keep him on pole.

This proved to be a good call because the track ramped up, allowing Verstappen to leapfrog Russell, but so did the two McLarens, with Lando Norris starting Saturday's Sprint Race in P3 and Oscar Piastri in P2.

But none of them were any match for Antonelli, who threw down a blistering time of 1:26.482 to beat Piastri for pole by a tenth of a second.

Again, this is on a challenging track he had never competed on until Friday.

Unbelievable.

This makes 18-year-old Antonelli the youngest polesitter in any race format — Grand Prix or Sprint Race — ever, beating the mark previously held by Sebastian Vettel for his pole performance ahead of the 2008 Italian Grand Prix by about two years.

The only thing is that they don't dish out points in qualifying, so it will be up to Antonelli to keep that Silver Arrow of his up front for 19 laps around Hard Rock Stadium.