Miami GP: Oscar Piastri eases to victory as Lando Norris fights back from first-lap drama to seal dominant McLaren one-two | F1 News

Oscar Piastri extended his world championship lead with a dominant Miami Grand Prix victory as Lando Norris recovered from first-lap drama to seal a McLaren one-two.

Piastri drove a faultless race from fourth on the grid to claim his third successive victory, passing pole-sitter Max Verstappen after a thrilling early battle before cruising clear.

Norris was left to rue what might have been after dropping from second to sixth on the first lap following a skirmish with Verstappen, before scything his way through the field to finish in his starting position.

The Brit valiantly halved Piastri’s lead to four seconds in the closing stages, but was powerless to deny the Australian victory as the McLarens charged more than 30 seconds clear of the rest of the field by the chequered flag.

Having lost out to Norris in Saturday’s Sprint, Piastri’s fourth win in six races this season moves him 16 points clear of his team-mate at the top of the standings.

Piastri said: “A bit of argy-bargy at Turn 1 which helped me a bit. I was aware enough to avoid Max coming through in Turn 1.

“From that point onwards I knew I had a good pace advantage and clearly the car was unbelievable.”

George Russell claimed an opportunistic podium for Mercedes, benefitting from the helpful timing of a Virtual Safety Car to leapfrog Verstappen for third during the only round of pit stops.

Verstappen, who cut a frustrated figure over Red Bull team radio as he struggled for speed throughout, falls 32 points back from Piastri in the standings, denting his hopes of sealing a fifth successive drivers’ title.

Alex Albon matched Williams’ best finish of the season by taking fifth after overtaking the other Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, having fired up his tyres quicker following the first of the race’s two Virtual Safety Car interruptions.

Charles Leclerc took seventh ahead of Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton after the latter became infuriated with his colleagues over the radio amid a team orders dispute.

Hamilton had to survive significant contact following a last-lap lunge from the other Williams of Carlos Sainz, for which the Spaniard avoided a penalty following a post-race investigation.

Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda overcame a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane to hold off Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar by little more than a tenth of a second for the final point.

Piastri cashes in after latest Norris-Verstappen clash

Norris had come into the weekend off the back of successive unconvincing displays as Piastri won in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, but appeared to have got himself back on track on Saturday by winning the Sprint and then qualifying two places ahead of Piastri.

The only issue with his qualifying performance was that for the third time this season McLaren were beaten to pole by Verstappen, which left the Brit with a dangerous obstacle to overcome.

An early opportunity presented itself as Verstappen ran deep into the first corner, which crucially forms the first part of a chicane, and Norris naturally attempted to take advantage of his better traction to go around the outside at Turn 2.

Verstappen, fighting to stave off the attack, suffered a snap on the short run to two that lurched him towards Norris, leaving the McLaren driver no option but to take evasive action off track, which would drop him to sixth.

The stewards noted the incident but decided an investigation wasn’t needed, with that call suggesting they believed that Verstappen had possession of the corner and was therefore not required to leave space for Norris.

“Max put up a good fight as always and I paid the price, but it’s the way it is,” Norris said. “What can I say? If I don’t go for it, people complain. If I go for it, people complain, so you can’t win.

“But it is 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. I paid the price for not doing a good enough job today, but I’m still happy with second.”

Piastri, meanwhile, swiftly dispatched Antonelli to move up to second, before closing up to Verstappen.

The Red Bull driver employed his fierce defensive tactics once more, but Piastri used them to his advantage as he cut back onto the inside as Verstappen locked up into Turn 1 and took the lead on lap 14.

By that point, Norris had closed to the back of the battle of the lead after passing Albon, Russell and Antonelli, but it would take him five laps to get past Verstappen, which allowed Piastri to surge into a nine-second lead.

Much of the field had extended their first stints amid fears the rain that had earlier in the day soaked the circuit could return, but the first round of stops eventually began as confidence grew that serious showers were staying away.

With Verstappen having already come in from third, a Virtual Safety Car was deployed on lap 29 when Oliver Bearman had to stop on track following a power unit failure on his Haas.

That gave McLaren a chance to further extend their lead with cheap pit stops, but more crucially, Russell was able to jump Verstappen for third as he also benefitted from running long.

The top four positions didn’t change from there, with the McLarens racing clear, likely to the frustration of Norris who would have realised by this point that he had the pace to be more patient at the start.

‘Have a tea break while you’re at it!’ – Hamilton unhappy with Ferrari decisions

After a frustrating start to the race, which saw him take a while to pass Esteban Ocon to get into the points, Hamilton was boosted by the VSC which enabled him to leapfrog Tsunoda.

Having started on hard tyres, he was then on the faster medium for the remainder of the race and found himself on the rear wing of team-mate Leclerc after they had both passed Sainz to move into seventh and eighth.

With Hamilton clearly faster than Leclerc, he immediately requested on team radio that the pit wall switch the cars to allow him to attack the Mercedes of Antonelli for sixth.

The seven-time world champion was told to wait, before Ferrari then told him they would stick with the current situation and ensure that he remained within DRS range of Leclerc.

Hamilton angrily replied that the call was “not good team work” and then referenced the Chinese Grand Prix, when he offered to let Leclerc through when his team-mate was going faster behind him.

Ferrari then changed course and switched the cars, around the time of which a radio message was played out of Hamilton saying: “Have a tea break while you’re at it, come on!”

Hamilton, who felt crucial life had been taken out of his tyres while he trailed Leclerc, was unable to make major inroads into Antonelli’s advantage, before being told to let his team-mate back through in the closing stages.

Having done so, Hamilton then sarcastically asked if the team wanted him to ‘let Sainz through as well’ when he was told of his margin to the trailing Williams.

Despite his clear frustration at the time, Hamilton played down the exchanges after the race, insisting that “people say worse things than I said.”

He told Sky Sports F1: “I lost a lot of time behind Charles and in that moment, for sure, I was like ‘come on, let’s make a decision quick, let’s not waste time.’

“I’m sure people didn’t like certain comments, but you’ve got to understand, it’s frustrating. People say way worse things than I said, so it was more sarcastic than anything.

“I’m not frustrated now. We’ll work internally, we’ll have discussions, and we’ll keep pushing.”

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