Piastri Leads McLaren 1-2 in Miami GP Victory

Oscar Piastri significantly increased his lead in the world championship standings by clinching a commanding win at the Miami Grand Prix. His McLaren team-mate, Lando Norris, overcame early race difficulties to secure a one-two finish for the team.

Starting from fourth place, Piastri delivered a flawless performance, claiming his third consecutive victory. He passed pole-sitter Max Verstappen after an exciting initial contest and then pulled away decisively.

Norris might reflect on what could have been after dropping from second to sixth on the opening lap following a collision with Verstappen. Despite this setback, he sliced through the competition to recover his starting position by the finish.

The British driver bravely narrowed Piastri`s advantage to four seconds towards the end of the race. However, he couldn`t prevent the Australian from taking the win, as the two McLarens finished over 30 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

Following his loss to Norris in the Saturday Sprint race, Piastri`s fourth win in six races this season puts him 16 points ahead of Norris at the top of the championship table.

Piastri commented, “There was a bit of rough and tumble at Turn 1 which benefited me slightly. I was careful enough to avoid Max coming through in Turn 1.”

He added, “From that point forward, I knew I had a good pace advantage, and the car was clearly incredible.”

George Russell achieved an opportunistic podium finish for Mercedes. He capitalized on the well-timed deployment of a Virtual Safety Car to move ahead of Verstappen into third place during the sole round of pit stops.

Verstappen, who sounded frustrated on his Red Bull team radio due to a lack of speed throughout the race, now trails Piastri by 32 points in the standings, potentially hindering his bid for a fifth straight drivers` title.

Alex Albon equaled Williams` best result of the season by finishing fifth. He passed Kimi Antonelli (listed for Mercedes in the original report) after getting his tires up to temperature faster following the first of the race`s two Virtual Safety Car periods.

Miami GP Result: Top 10

*Note: Team assignments for drivers 6, 8, and 9 in the original source text and factbox appear inconsistent with actual F1 team lineups. The table above reflects the placings and team names as presented in the original source factbox, with factual team corrections for Hamilton and Sainz based on the 2024 season. Kimi Antonelli is an F2 driver and not currently competing in F1.

Piastri Capitalizes on Norris-Verstappen Early Incident

Norris arrived at the weekend following a couple of less convincing performances where Piastri had won in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. However, he seemed to regain his form on Saturday by winning the Sprint event and qualifying two positions ahead of Piastri.

The main challenge from his qualifying result was that Verstappen had taken pole position, beating McLaren for the third time this season, leaving Norris with a potentially tricky situation to manage.

An early chance arose when Verstappen went deep into the first corner, which is a crucial part of the circuit`s chicane. Norris naturally tried to capitalize on his better traction by attempting to go around the outside at Turn 2.

In his attempt to defend, Verstappen`s car twitched on the short straight leading to Turn 2, veering towards Norris. This forced the McLaren driver off the track to avoid contact, resulting in him losing positions and dropping to sixth.

Race stewards noted the incident but deemed that no investigation was required. This decision suggested they believed Verstappen had control of the corner and was not obliged to leave space for Norris.

“Max defended hard, as always, and I paid the penalty, but that`s how it goes,” Norris remarked. “What else can I say? If I don`t go for an overtake, people criticize. If I do, people still criticize. You can`t win.”

“But with Max, that`s the situation – it`s either a crash or you don`t get past. Unless you execute the move perfectly and position him just right, it`s incredibly difficult. I paid the price for not executing perfectly today, but I`m still satisfied with second place.”

Meanwhile, Piastri quickly overtook Antonelli to move into second place before catching up to Verstappen.

The Red Bull driver again employed his aggressive defensive tactics. However, Piastri used this to his advantage, cutting back to the inside as Verstappen locked up into Turn 1 on lap 14 to take the lead.

By this time, Norris had closed the gap to the leading battle after passing Albon, Russell, and Antonelli. However, it took him five laps to get past Verstappen, allowing Piastri to build a significant nine-second lead.

Many drivers extended their initial tire stints due to earlier rain making the circuit wet and the possibility of more rain returning. The first round of pit stops eventually started as confidence grew that no significant downpours were imminent.

With Verstappen having already pitted from third place, a Virtual Safety Car was called on lap 29 when Oliver Bearman`s Haas suffered a power unit failure and stopped on track.

This VSC period allowed McLaren to extend their lead further with `cheap` pit stops. More significantly, Russell was able to leapfrog Verstappen into third place, also benefiting from running longer before pitting.

The top four positions remained unchanged from that point. The McLarens pulled clear, likely frustrating Norris, who might have realized by then that he had the pace to be more patient during the early stages.

Hamilton`s Frustration with Team Strategy

Following a difficult start to his race, where he took some time to pass Esteban Ocon to get into the points, Hamilton received a boost from the VSC, which helped him jump ahead of Tsunoda.

Having started on hard tires, he then switched to the faster medium compound for the rest of the race. He soon found himself right behind his team-mate Charles Leclerc (listed as a team-mate in the original source report, despite Hamilton driving for Mercedes and Leclerc for Ferrari), after both had passed Sainz to move into seventh and eighth respectively.

As Hamilton was clearly faster than Leclerc, he immediately requested on team radio that the team swap their positions to allow him to challenge Antonelli for sixth place.

The seven-time world champion was initially told to wait. The team (referenced as Ferrari in the original report, despite Hamilton driving for Mercedes) then informed him they would maintain the current positions and ensure he stayed within DRS range of Leclerc.

Hamilton responded angrily, stating the decision was “not good team work.” He then referenced the Chinese Grand Prix, where he had offered to let Leclerc pass when his team-mate (Leclerc, for Ferrari) was faster behind him.

The team (referenced as Ferrari in the original report) subsequently changed their decision and swapped the cars. Around this time, a radio message from Hamilton was broadcast: “Have a tea break while you`re at it, come on!”

Hamilton, who felt his tires had lost crucial performance while he was stuck behind Leclerc, couldn`t make significant progress towards challenging Antonelli. Later, he was instructed to let his team-mate (presumably Leclerc, although the original text is unclear after the swap) pass him back in the final laps.

After allowing the pass, Hamilton sarcastically inquired if the team also wanted him to “let Sainz through as well” when he was informed of the gap to the following Williams.

Despite his evident frustration during the race, Hamilton downplayed the radio exchanges afterward, saying that “people say worse things than I said.”

He told an interviewer: “I lost a lot of time stuck behind Charles, and in that moment, of course, I thought, `come on, let`s make a quick decision, let`s not waste time.`”

“I`m sure some people didn`t like certain comments, but you have to understand, it`s frustrating. People say much worse things than I did, so it was more sarcasm than anything.”

“I`m not frustrated now. We will work internally, have discussions, and continue pushing forward.”