McLaren's Miami podium double is their best result of 2026. Canada tests whether it holds

Norris finished second and Piastri third in Miami, the first time both McLarens have landed on the podium in the same race this season. It is a more significant result than the points gap suggests, because it happened at the worst possible moment for the team sitting 86 points ahead of them in the constructors’ standings.

That team is Mercedes. Antonelli won in Miami for the third consecutive race, which means the championship leader has taken three wins from the last three rounds. Russell finished fourth. The W15’s successor has been built for exactly the high-speed, flowing corners that Miami rewards, and there is no obvious reason to expect it will stop there.

Canada, though, is a different question. Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a stop-start street circuit, heavy on braking zones and low-speed chicanes, with a single long straight that rewards late corner exit speed over pure downforce. It is the kind of circuit that redistributes the order. In the last four rounds, Mercedes’ strongest qualifying positions have come as the season has warmed up, while Antonelli’s run of three consecutive pole positions has coincided with technical tracks where aero efficiency matters. Montreal will not be that.

McLaren arrives in Montreal with the most momentum they have had all year. Through the first three rounds, their results looked like two cars struggling to find traction: Piastri finished 21st, 19th, and 2nd across rounds 1 to 3, while Norris went 5th, 20th, and 5th. The double-podium in Miami is only the second clean result of 2026 for either driver. Norris has now finished on the podium in rounds 4 and his qualifying position improved from 6th at Australia to 4th at Miami, a slow but observable forward movement.

The more pointed question is where Ferrari fits. Leclerc qualified third in Miami and finished eighth, his worst race result of the season. He has been on the podium in three of the first four rounds, but the gap between where he qualifies and where he finishes has widened. Hamilton, who also finished sixth in Miami after qualifying sixth, is level with Norris on 51 points in the standings. Ferrari hold 110 points as a constructor, 86 behind Mercedes and 16 ahead of McLaren. The three-way constructors’ fight is now compressed into a range where one bad weekend from any of the three changes the picture materially.

Verstappen qualified second in Miami, his best grid position of 2026 after starting sessions from 8th, 11th, and a missed session in the previous three rounds. He finished fifth. Red Bull are on 30 points as a constructor, well clear of the next group but also well short of a realistic title conversation at this stage. Canada is historically a circuit where Red Bull have extracted performance from slower packages, and Verstappen’s qualifying position in Miami suggests some recovery in the car’s underlying pace.

The thread connecting Miami to Montreal is a straightforward one: can McLaren repeat in a context that asks different questions of the car? Circuits like this one tend to widen gaps that high-speed circuits paper over. If Mercedes’ advantage is structural, it will look larger on Sunday. If McLaren’s Miami result reflected genuine pace, it will hold. One race is weak evidence either way. We would want to see one more before reading a trend into it.

The Canadian Grand Prix takes place on 24 May at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.