Ferrari will be among the teams likely to make a "big step" in performance at the Miami Grand Prix as they target closing the gap to Mercedes in what will still prove a “wide open” 2026 season at the front, says Your Site F1’s Martin Brundle.
Brundle believes that F1's return to action in the USA will be "like a relaunch of the season" after the sport's enforced April break with teams having had extended time to work on "dramatically changed and, hopefully, improved cars" with potential to shuffle the pecking order.
Mercedes will resume the campaign as clearly the team to beat after winning all three races so far with Drivers' Championship leader Kimi Antonelli and team-mate George Russell.
Ferrari and their drivers are closest to Mercedes in the standings with team-mates Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton separated by eight points in third and fourth place in the Drivers' Championship having engaged in entertaining wheel-to-wheel battles in both China and Japan.
On Hamilton, who broke his Grand Prix podium duck for Ferrari at the season's second round in Shanghai before a more difficult weekend at Suzuka when he finished sixth with Leclerc third, Brundle told Your Site News: "Lewis clearly enjoys these cars much more.
"Ferrari is more competitive and I think again will make a big step for Miami.
"Lewis obviously prefers this type of car to the seasons we had with the ground-effect cars that were smashing against the ground and were quite brutal things, it didn't seem to suit his style.
"But just his mood and just the way he's going about it, he just seems a lot happier because Ferrari is more competitive.
"He's got to beat Charles Leclerc if he's going to win the world championship in the other Ferrari, and others.
"Let's see if he can sustain that. If there's a sniff of a victory, I think Lewis is still very much capable of taking that."
Hamilton, when still at Mercedes, and Leclerc last won races in 2024 with Ferrari's own victory drought stretching back to October of that year, when Carlos Sainz won in Mexico City.
The season resumes with the year's second Sprint weekend in Miami, a race which McLaren have won in each of the past two seasons, although Mercedes remain favourites owing to their 100 per cent winning start to F1's new era of regulations in 2026.
But Brundle believes it is still too early in the new ruleset and car development for a definitive order to have emerged with 19 races left this season.
"I think it's totally wide open," said Brundle.
"We have got a Sprint weekend in Miami, so there are Sprint points to be won, Grand Prix points to be won.
"This is going to ebb and flow. I see teams leapfrogging others with some upgrades because there is so much upside potential with these cars.
"Anybody I would say in the top four teams, any of those eight drivers, could win this year's world championship."
Thursday April 30
7pm: Drivers' Press Conference
10pm: Paddock Uncut
Friday May 1
2.35pm: F2 Practice
4.30pm: Miami GP Practice One (session starts at 5pm)*
7.25pm: F2 Qualifying
8.10pm: Team Bosses' Press Conference
8.40pm: Miami GP Sprint Qualifying (session starts at 9.30pm)
Saturday May 2
2.55pm: F2 Sprint
4pm: Miami GP Sprint build-up
5pm: MIAMI GP SPRINT
6.30pm: Ted's Sprint Notebook
8pm: Miami GP Qualifying build-up*
9pm: MIAMI GP QUALIFYING*
11pm: Ted's Qualifying Notebook*
Sunday May 3
5.25pm: F2 Feature Race
7pm: Miami GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
9pm: THE MIAMI GRAND PRIX*
11pm: Miami GP reaction: Chequered Flag*
12am: Ted's Notebook*
*Also on Your Site Main Event
Formula 1 returns from Friday with the Miami Grand Prix, the season's second Sprint weekend, live on Your Site F1.
