The Miami Grand Prix has been moved forward by three hours to 18:00 BST (13:00 local time) because of the threat of thunderstorms.

And world champion Lando Norris says the Formula 1 drivers will be "thrown in at the deep end" by the expected wet weather on Sunday.

The McLaren driver is one of the vast majority of the grid who have not yet experienced the 2026 cars in wet conditions, following the biggest rule change in the sport's history.

The massive amount of electrical power available in the new engines, and the issues teams have been having deploying it in a predictable manner, threaten "a bit more chaos," as Norris puts it.

"I don't know how wet it's going to be," said Norris, who qualified fourth behind Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. "It's going to be a big challenge on race day for everyone to perform, find the limit.

"Obviously, you can't afford to make any mistakes. We're thrown in the deep end, but that's what we're here to do. I look forward to it."

The change to the start time of the race comes after the previous two scheduled grands prix, in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, were cancelled because of the war in the Middle East.

The decision was made by commercial rights holder F1 and governing body the FIA on Saturday evening in Miami.

A statement from F1 and the FIA said it was made because "the weather forecast (predicts) heavier rainstorms later in the afternoon close to the original planned race start time".

The statement added: "This decision has been taken to ensure the least amount of disruption to the race, and to ensure the maximum possible window to complete the grand prix in the best conditions and to prioritise the safety of drivers, fans, teams and staff."

The aim is to try to finish the race before the worst of the weather arrives, which is forecast to be at about 15:00 local time (20:00 BST), one hour before the original start time.

That heavy rain, once it starts, is expected to stay for hours, so the fear was that sticking with the original start time would have meant the race could not be run.

Local laws in the US mean that the race could be suspended if there is a threat of a lightning strike at or around the circuit. This would be to allow all personnel to "shelter in place".

A series of protocols have been announced by the FIA defining how that would be administered either before or during the race.

Moving it forward, the race is still likely to be wet, but the hope is the conditions will be acceptable for running the cars.

F1 cars do run in the rain, but the limiting factor is always visibility from the vast amounts of spray thrown up by the cars, as well as aquaplaning if the amounts of standing water are significant enough to force the low-running cars to effectively float on top of water on the track.

Norris' team-mate Oscar Piastri added: "It's obviously going to be a voyage into the unknown for everybody. When it rains here, it normally is pretty torrential, so it could be an interesting day.

"It's just going to be what happens with the power-unit, how you get power, where you get power is in a computer's hands.

"Just making sure that that does roughly what we expect. Obviously, the margin for error when it's wet is significantly smaller."

The forecast for rain comes during an unpredictable weekend in which form has fluctuated.

McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari all brought major upgrades to their cars for this race while Mercedes have only minimal developments; they are saving their big step for the next race in Canada, where McLaren will have further new parts.

McLaren dominated the sprint race with Norris leading a one-two ahead of Piastri, only to fall back in grand prix qualifying.

Meanwhile, Verstappen hailed Red Bull's step forward after being a second off the pace at the last race in Japan as "incredible" and "massive".

"When I get a car that is more together, I get more confidence, and I can finally also push a bit more," he said. "Then I try to always extract the most out of it. And that's what we've done. Honestly, in that lap as well, just trying to hang on to it, and it was good."

The four-time champion is one of the few drivers to drive one of the new cars in the wet, along with the Ferrari pair and his team-mate Isack Hadjar, who crashed in the wet in pre-season testing in Barcelona.

Verstappen said: "Quite slippery. It's quite a handful. It's not going to be easy. But let's first also wait and see how much water is going to come down, because that also makes a big difference."

The rain makes relative competitiveness impossible to predict because no one has any idea how the cars perform compared to each other in such conditions, especially as so few drivers have even driven these new cars in the rain.

On top of that, rain always adds an extra factor of randomisation, as well as the heightened risk of accidents and incidents.