MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — For an 18-lap appetizer before Sunday’s Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix main course, Saturday’s F1 Sprint proved more filling on action than some full-length races.

Two days after Formula 1 drivers complained about Miami traffic, they presented 37 minutes of what could’ve been I-95 or Palmetto Expressway wackiness as McLaren’s Lando Norris took the checkered flag in Miami Gardens.

Unexpected rain. A crash by an unexpected driver. Little visibility. Some standing water. Rain stop. An inexperienced driver and experienced driver playing chicken for one part of the road. Younger driver crashing an old driver.

That last incident and the ensuing safety car emergence helped Norris score another win at Miami International Autodrome, just as a well-timed safety car helped Norris win last year’s Miami Grand Prix. Saturday, Norris pitted to switch from grooved rain tires to the usual slick tires on Lap 15, one lap after teammate and leader Oscar Piastri had done so.

Normally, Norris would’ve left the pits still in second behind Piastri. But, the safety car came out after Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson, 22, hit and spun Aston Martin’s 45-year-old Fernando Alonso. This slowed the field down enough for Norris to leave the pits as the leader, and he rolled to the checkered flag.

“I don’t think I’m going to be buying any lottery tickets in this place,” second-place Piastri said over the radio.

“I had good pace throughout and good pace through the stint,” said Norris, who had been outperformed by his teammate so far this year. He said he’d been happy with his Sprint qualifying performance, “Even though we were third, I was so happy the way we executed the lap.

A buoyant Hamilton, who started seventh, finished third after making an early switch from rain tires to the normal slick tires.

Steady precipitation began falling about a half hour before the scheduled noon start by which point the field already had lost a Ferrari. Lapping pre-race, Charles Leclerc scraped the right side of his car on a length of the outer wall at the end of the long straightaway, taking him out of a race that hadn’t started yet.

Immediately, a chagrined Leclerc said on the radio to his team, “I’m sorry.”

Hamilton said, “I had exactly the same moment. I was right behind him. Somehow, it just stopped going toward the wall right at the last moment.

Polesitter Mercedes Kimi Antonelli, 18, said on the formation lap, ““I can’t see anything behind the safety car.”

Starting next to Antonelli, Piastri said “This visibility is genuinely the worst I’ve ever had in a race car,” and described the water in Turn 10 as “a river.”

This got proceedings red flagged and the start moved back to 12:28 p.m.

As if being the youngest polesitter for any kind of race in F1 history wasn’t enough, Antonelli had points leader Piastri next to him and a damp track under him. At lights out, Piastri accelerated better and they hit the first turn even. Piastri gave Antonelli as little room as he did Max Verstappen at the start of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix two weeks ago.

Antonelli went off the course, coming back on in fourth, and complaining “He pushed me off!”

Stewards took a look at the incident and let it go.

Piastri described it later as, “I had a pretty good start. We got alongside. I think we probably both braked a little later than we should have. There was a bit of contact.”

That dissatisfying opening got bookended with a disastrous ending for Antonelli. As he came into his pit box, defending world champion Max Verstappen, one pit behind, left his pit box. Verstappen crashed into Antonelli, taking out Antonelli and earning a 10-second penalty for an unsafe exit to the pits.

Verstappen immediately said, perhaps to the crew responsible for letting him know it was safe to leave the pits, “Guys, come on!”

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