Miami Gardens (United States) (AFP) – Oscar Piastri made it a hat-trick of wins with victory in the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday as McLaren enjoyed a one-two on the podium to continue their dominant Formula One season. Australian Piastri finished 4.6 seconds ahead of British team-mate Lando Norris, with George Russell of Mercedes finishing third but 37.6 seconds behind. The victory was the third in a row for Piastri after his wins in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and his fourth in the six races so far this season.
Four-time world champion Max Verstappen, who started on pole, finished in fourth place, with Alex Albon of Williams fifth and 18-year-old Italian Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes in sixth. “I was aware enough to avoid Max in turn one, and from then I knew I had a good pace advantage,” Piastri said. “The car was incredible today. The hard stint I was struggling a little bit, so there are some things to work on. Got to keep learning, but very happy to be leaving Miami on top.” Two years ago here we were the slowest team; I think we got lapped twice. Here, we just won the race by 35 seconds,” he added.
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Piastri, who started at fourth on the grid, grabbed the lead on lap 14 when Verstappen took the inside line but was too late on the brakes and went wide. “Brakes man, honestly, useless,” the Dutchman told his team radio, and the Red Bull driver, a two-time winner at Miami, was not to get a sniff of the lead again. Norris went on the hunt for Verstappen, but by the time he got ahead, after some jousting on lap 17, Piastri had opened up a nine-second lead.
“It’s never the best feeling (to be second) but the team has done an amazing job, so I can’t fault them at all,” said Norris. “We were up the road, so it is a good feeling. Oscar drove well, Max put up a good fight as always, so it is what it is. I paid the price for not doing a good enough job today, but still happy to be second,” he said.
Russell had finished behind his team-mate Antonelli in qualifying, but after some frustration in the sprint race as well, he was glad to be on the podium. “Really happy to come away with P3 as I have been struggling this weekend personally. Well done to the McLaren; they were just too far down the road,” he said.
It was another disappointing day for Ferrari, with Charles Leclerc finishing seventh and Lewis Hamilton a place behind. Hamilton, in his first season with the Italian team, expressed frustration with his team’s tactics several times during the race, especially after he was instructed to let Leclerc pass him. Carlos Sainz faces a steward investigation after his aggressive attempt to overtake Hamilton on the final corner.
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