McLaren’s Oscar Piastri made it three consecutive victories to extend his world championship lead after an impressive win on the streets of Miami.
With the threatening rain never arriving, Piastri’s Miami Grand Prix win made him the first McLaren driver to win three races in a row since two-time world champion Mika Hakkinen won the final race of the 1997 season and the first two grands prix of 1998.
“I think the first stint was really, really strong, then the [second] hard stint, I was honestly struggling a little bit, so it was a good thing that I built that gap in the first stint,” said Piastri, who started fourth. “I think towards the end I started to get things a bit more back under control. But there’s still definitely some things to work on from this afternoon. So I’m very happy with the win, very happy with the points, but constantly got to keep learning.
“Remember two years ago, here in Miami, we were genuinely the slowest team – I think we got lapped twice – and to now have won the Grand Prix by over 35 seconds to third is an unbelievable result.”
Piastri crossed the line 4.630 seconds ahead of teammate Lando Norris, with Mercedes’ George Russell taking third, 37.644 seconds back. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Williams driver Alex Albon rounded out the top-five.
The young Australian now leads the driver points with 131, 16 more than Norris at 115, with Verstappen third, with 99 points. McLaren leads the constructors title with 246 points, 105 better than Mercedes’ 141. Red Bull lies third, with 105.
Unfortunately for Norris, Piastri looks to be the clear McLaren team leader after one-quarter of the season in the books. That said, Piastri insisted that the McLaren pair want to work together rather than against each other.
“It’s always been close between us; it’s going to be a good battle – there will be weekends where Lando is stronger, and weekends where I am stronger,” he said. “We’re very aware of the fact that we want this success for as long as we’re at McLaren, which is a very long time for both of us. We both want to become world champion, obviously, but we don’t just want one opportunity at this success. We want it for the next however many years, and that’s an important and an easy thing to keep in mind for us and the whole team.”
Norris lined up second on the grid but lost four places going off-track, while battling off the line with polesitter Verstappen, and could not recover enough to mount a challenge for the win. In the end, his impatience on the first lap cost him dearly.
“Max put up a good fight as always, and I paid the price, but it is the way it is,” said Norris. “If I don’t go for it, people complain; if I go for it, people complain, so you can’t win. But it’s the way it is with Max – it’s crash or don’t pass. Unless you get it really right and you put him in the perfect position, then you can just about get there. But I’m still happy with second.”
The first 18 laps saw Verstappen doing his own version of an elbows up Canadian as he fought to keep the two McLarens behind, with Piastri bringing the first battle, then Norris piling on once his teammate got past. Once they cleared the Red Bull, the pair of papaya cars pulled away easily, building a more than 30-second gap to the third-place car of Russell.
Meanwhile, Mercedes driver Russell put in another solid drive to score his third podium of the year after qualifying fifth. He moved up when Norris went off battling with Verstappen and slowly crept his way to the podium. He jumped Verstappen for third with a pit stop under a virtual safety car and never looked back.
“To be honest, I’m really happy to come away with P3 because I’ve been struggling this weekend, personally, and always on the back foot, but ultimately, when it mattered, got a really good result,” he said.
Norris won the F1 Sprint on Saturday after a well-timed safety car allowed him to get ahead of teammate Piastri in a race that never restarted. The win closed the points gap to Piastri to nine markers going into the Grand Prix, 106-97. The Sprint also began behind the safety car as heavy rain blanketed the circuit as the start time arrived.
Miami continued the tough string of races for Aston Martin, with Canadian Lance Stroll ending the day as the last car running, in 16th, with teammate Fernando Alonso finishing 15th. Both ended the race a lap behind Piastri.
“Difficult race for us today and very tricky conditions, as we expected. We just simply lack pace – we’ve been slow all season so far and today wasn’t any exception,” said Stroll. “With an uneventful race and no opportunities, it just shows how we’re not competitive and need to look at improving the car in all areas.”
