Piastri completes hat-trick of wins to stretch Formula One lead

MIAMI (Agencies): Oscar Piastri won the Miami Grand Prix in an utterly dominant McLaren one-two on Sunday 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. George Russell finished third for Mercedes but a mighty 37.644 seconds behind. “Two years ago at Miami we were the slowest team. I think we were lapped twice,” said Piastri after another implacably flawless drive. “Now to have won the Grand Prix by over 35 seconds to third is an unbelievable result.” 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. Alex Albon was fifth for Williams, ahead of Kimi Antonelli in a Mercedes and the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. Carlos Sainz made it a double points finish for Williams in ninth and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda was 10th despite a five second penalty.

FIRST LAP CLASH:

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 two and losing three places, with Antonelli second and Piastri third. “He forced me off,” said Norris over the team radio. “What am I meant to do? Just drive into the wall or something? I was completely alongside.” 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,” Norris said later. “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.” Piastri passed Antonelli on lap four, after a brief virtual safety car period triggered by Jack Doohan stopping his Alpine at turn 14 after a collision at the start with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson.

“I got completely hit. No idea what the Alpine was doing,” said New Zealander Lawson, who dropped to last and eventually retired. Norris was back in third place by lap nine, 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. Both McLarens pitted when the virtual safety car was deployed again on lap 30 after Haas’s Ollie Bearman 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. Hamilton and Leclerc swapped places on lap 39 as the seven times world champion, on medium tyres to Leclerc’s hards, complained he was faster and just “burning up” his tyres in the dirty air. “Have a tea-break while you’re at it, come on,” fumed Hamilton over the radio as he waited for Leclerc to be given the call to cede position. Leclerc then complained he needed Hamilton to go faster as the Briton failed to pull away, with the positions reversed again on lap 52.