Demonstrating with emphatic effect that he must be considered now the frontrunner for the championship, Oscar Piastri’s drive from fourth on the grid to victory was the stuff that defines the battling Aussie spirit. Taking the win forMcLarenwith a piece of relentlessly controlled dominance, and in so doing determinedly maintaining his place out front in a tight title fight, Piastri laid down a marker in Florida that he will be exceptionally hard to beat this season.
Disappointed on missing out on a win in the sprint race on Saturday, Piastri and his team executed this race with perfection to secure a remarkable win, beating his teammate Lando Norris into second place, the British driver’s hopes of victory extinguished within moments of the lights going out when he went wheel to wheel withMax Verstappen, went off and fell to sixth. Verstappen could manage only fourth from pole, behind the Mercedes of George Russell, while Alex Albon took a superb fifth for Williams.
Lewis Hamilton however had another somewhat trying afternoon in the Ferrari, finishing eighth, after another testy run-in with his team over the radio.
Piastri has shown dominance from pole repeatedly this season, with this his fourth win butat the Hard Rock Stadiumhe had to work for it and ensured he remains front and centre in the championship fight. He now leads Norris by 16 points with Verstappen in third, 32 points back.
He was driving at his very best, his confidence high but matched with the calm assurance he has behind the wheel and with which he was able to deliver, despite being chased to the flag by Norris. The scale of their advantage over the rest of the field was breathtaking. Once both drivers had clean air out front having passed Verstappen, they took off, with Piastri finishing 37 seconds up on Russell.
For Norris the opening had been costly. Verstappen just held his lead through turn one but locked up and squeezed Norris off, with the British driver losing places to sixth in the process in what was judged a racing incident. Piastri shot through and, after he had passed Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, took off after the world champion.
They duelled for several laps to thrilling effect but on lap 14 Piastri finally made it stick at turn one, by which point Norris had come back and almost caught them. However the time it then took him to pass Verstappen, another four laps, was all the window Piastri needed and during which he put nine seconds on his teammate, a gap that was all but impossible for Norris to overcome by the close with the two cars so closely matched.
“Max put up a good fight, and I just paid the price,” said Norris. “What can I say? If I don’t go for it, people complain. If I go for it, people complain. With Max it’s crash or don’t pass, and I just had to get him in the right position.”
Qualifying had been disappointing for Piastri but when it mattered he and Norris put the McLaren’s superior race pace to use with clinical effect.
Once he had passed Verstappen after a stout defence from the Dutchman, Piastri was all but untouchable and he knew it showed how far he and the team have come.
“I remember two years ago in Miami we were genuinely the slowest team, I think we got lapped twice,” he said. “To now have won the grand prix by over 35 seconds to third is an unbelievable result.”
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This was indeed a masterful performance from driver and team for his first victory in Miami and a remarkable fourth in six races this season, only the 24-year-old’s third in F1.
Hamilton and Ferrari however endured a more fractious afternoon. Once more neither he nor Charles Leclerc were within a sniff of a podium and reduced to fighting the Williams of Carlos Sainz. When Hamilton was clearly quicker Ferrari had Leclerc move over for him into seventh place but only after the British driver expressed intense frustration at the time the team took to make the decision. “Have a tea break while you’re at it,” was his exasperated response.
They then had him give the place back later in the race and, when told Sainz was closing, Hamilton’s response of: “You want to let him past as well?” was weighted with sarcasm and discontent. Another indication the relationship with theScuderiastill has no little development in it.
For all that Verstappen andRed Bullhad managed to find a better window for their car this weekend, the McLaren was very much the class of the field in race pace and once more notably easier on its tyres than its competitors. It is also notable this season that the two areas Piastri was considered unable to match Norris last year, qualifying and tyre management, he has very much mastered and that is giving him a distinct advantage in the title fight, for which he might now be considered favourite.
Typically for the grand sense of fun and spectacle Miami presents, before the race the drivers had taken to the track in specially built full-size Lego replicas of their car consisting of 400,000 blocks and weighing over a ton and a half. They drove the track at 20km/h and proved enormously popular with the drivers but when the serious business was finished in Florida it must be considered that it is Piastri who now has all the building blocks in place for a serious tilt at the title.