By Luke Pons
Lando Norris beat his teammate Lando Norris to extend his lead at the top of the drivers’ championship.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly started the race from the pit lane he had qualified 18th. George Russell in fifth and Lewis Hamilton in 12th started on the hard tyres. Further back on the grid, Liam Lawson, Nico Hulkenberg, Fernando Alonso, Oliver Bearman and Pierre Gasly also decided to go with the hards. Everyone else, including the top four chose the medium compound.
A chaotic start off the line Max Verstappen lead into turn one but locked up and Lando Norris went wheel-to-wheel with him out of the corner. But Norris then ran wide on the outside of the second corner at turn two dropping him down to sixth. Kimi Antonelli slotted into second with Oscar Piastri third. The action quickly stopped however as on lap 2 Jack Doohan’s car stopped on the track ending his race after an incident with Liam Lawson resulting in a virtual safety car.
The racing got back underway in lap 4 with Max looking to build a gap over second place Antonelli. Lando still down in P6. Mclaren quickly showed the grid who’s got the fastest car as Piastri climbed into second just 1s behind Verstappen and Lando climbed up into 5th.
On lap 9 Norris climbed up to P3 after catching Antonelli with the DRS into turn 11. Now 4.2s behind his teammate. Fernando Alonsos horrible start to the season continued he makes a mistake pushing him even further down the grid to P18.
Lap 10 and it was only a matter of time before Piastri got close and personal with Verstappen. Piastri is much quicker and biding his time as Max defends into turn 11 and turn 17 with all he had. The duel between the pair gave Lando the chance to cut the gap down to 2.8 seconds on his teammate.
Lap 13 Piastri took the lead Verstappen defended the inside into Turn 17 which gave him a poor exit down the main straight. The Red Bull driver locked up at the first corner and Piastri slipped through down the inside.
Lap 17 Not much rest bite for Verstappen Norris lunged down the inside at Turn 11 and got through but gave the spot back later into Turn 17. Piastri now 8s ahead. And less than a lap later Lando and Mclaren finally got ahead of max for good. But there was still no breathing for the 4 time world champion Antonelli only two seconds behind with Russell still following his Mercedes team-mate.
Lap 26 Running within two seconds of Max Verstappen in third, Mercedes attempted an undercut on the Red Bull by bringing Kimi Antonelli in to change tyres.
But it didn’t go to plan as the Mercedes crew had to hold the car in the box slightly longer due to an oncoming Williams of Carlos Sainz, meaning he was stationary for 4.4s.
Lap 28 at the halfway mark and Bearman’s engine blows up and stops at turn 8 resulting in a safety car. The leaders took advantage and came into the pits and the McLarens had enough room to not double stack. Piastri still leading Norris by seven seconds. An amazing pitstop for George Russel and as he jumps his own teammate and Verstappen under the VSC taking him up to P3.
Lap 32 Yuki Tsunoda given a five-second time penalty by stewards for running too fast into the pit lane. Running 11th and unless he stops again, the 5s will be added to his final race time.
Lap 33 yet again another virtual safety car Bortoleto complaining of engine issues earlier and ended up stopping on the back straight.
The Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were running right behind Carlos Sainz’s Williams Leclerc lined his ex-teammate up out of the final corner and went for the inside down into Turn One. Both Sainz and Leclerc ran wide under braking and while the Ferrari ultimately held on to take the place, there was enough of a gap created for Hamilton to steam through on the Williams too. Leclerc is seventh with Hamilton eighth, with the Briton having been motoring on his new medium tyres before the VSC.
Lap 38 Lewis Hamilton continues to be stuck behind Charles Leclerc. His engineer tells him: “We want to keep the DRS to Charles go ahead like this.” Hamilton replies: “Man you guys! This is not good team work. That’s all I’m going to say!”
Lap 39 Liam Lawson becomes the fourth retiree of this Miami Grand Prix. He had little pace after damaging his floor earlier in the race.
Lando closes down the gap to Piastri to 3.5 with 7 laps left.
Approaching the final two laps now and it’s looked highly unlikely there will be any switch of position among the top four positions. Oscar Piastri’s lead over Lando Norris being 3.9s while Verstappen dropped 2.9s back on George Russell.
Oscar Pisatri made it a hat-trick of wins and increased his lead in the championship to 16 points over Lando Norris, who finished 4.6 seconds behind. A long wait for George Russel to finish with the gap from the McLarens being over 30 seconds.
An eventful race with 4 DNFS. Lots of fighting between max and the McLarens, and a large about of arguing between the Ferrari drivers and the choice of team orders and strategy. But for Piastri his amazing season continues. We will sadly have to wait 2 weeks for Italy but I’m sure there will be plenty of off the track politics in the time being.
WHEEL2WHEEL REPORTS 