Oscar Piastri completes hat-trick of wins in Miami GP to stretch F1 lead

MIAMI – Oscar Piastri won the Miami Grand Prix in an utterly dominant McLaren one-two on May 4 to complete a hat-trick and stretch his Formula One championship lead over teammate Lando Norris to 16 points after six rounds.

The win from fourth on the grid was the Australian’s third in a row, after Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and fourth of the season. McLaren have so far been beaten only once, in Japan. Briton George Russell finished third for Mercedes, but a lengthy 37.644 seconds behind.

“Two years ago, at Miami, we were the slowest team. I think we were lapped twice. Now to have won the Grand Prix by over 35 seconds to third is an unbelievable result,” said Piastri after another flawless drive.

Red Bull’s world champion Max Verstappen was fourth, overtaken by both McLarens and maintaining a sequence dating back to the race’s debut in 2022 of the driver starting on pole position in Miami failing to win.

Alexander Albon of Thailand was fifth for Williams, ahead of Italy’s Kimi Antonelli in a Mercedes and the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Briton Lewis Hamilton. Spain’s Carlos Sainz made it a double points finish for Williams in ninth and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda of Japan was 10th despite a five-second penalty.

The start provided an immediate talking point with Norris challenging Verstappen for the lead but then having to go off after making contact at Turn 2 and losing three places, with Antonelli second and Piastri third.

“He forced me off. What am I meant to do? Just drive into the wall or something? I was completely alongside,” said Norris over the team radio. Stewards took a look and decided no further action was needed.

“Max put up a good fight as always and I paid the price, but it’s the way it is. 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,” Norris said later.

Piastri passed Antonelli on Lap 4 after a brief virtual safety car period triggered by Australian Jack Doohan stopping his Alpine at Turn 14 following a collision at the start with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson.

“I got completely hit. No idea what the Alpine was doing,” said Lawson, who dropped to last and eventually retired.

Norris was back in third place by Lap 9, after passing both Mercedes drivers with rain threatening, while Piastri was on Verstappen’s tail and passed the Dutch driver, who drifted wide, on Lap 14 after several thwarted attempts.

Verstappen held off Norris until Lap 17 when both went off the track, but the McLaren driver handed back the position without the stewards needing to intervene. Norris made the move stick soon after, but Piastri was already eight seconds down the road.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella felt Norris should have waited to make his move on Verstappen, saying: “The first lap, with hindsight, it would have potentially been wiser for Lando to lift and accept he would have gained the lead later on in the race because the car was fast enough, but that’s with the benefit of hindsight.”

Stella also insisted giving back the place was the right thing to do coming just two weeks after Verstappen was given a five-second penalty when he failed to give the lead back to Piastri after going ahead through running wide.

“That was the right thing to do because Lando, in our judgment, was outside the track limits and you have to give back the track position. That’s a little bit of bad luck, but you have to behave and behave fairly. That could have been the risk of a penalty, so it was the right thing to do,” said the Italian.

Both McLarens pitted when the virtual safety car was deployed again on Lap 30 after Haas’ Oliver Bearman of Britain stopped with a power unit issue.

Verstappen had pitted a lap earlier to cover after Antonelli came in on Lap 26. The virtual safety car was then deployed for a third time when Sauber’s Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto stopped his car on Lap 33. REUTERS