By Lizzie Price
After being pushed back forward 3 hours in fear of an ensuing downpour it was light out in Miami with a chaotic opening lap. Continuing their form of poor race starts both Mercedes lost places whilst the McLaren pair of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris assumed position, but it was Ferarri’s Charles Leclerc who took the lead. The start was much worse for Verstappen, who spun out and dropped to tenth and Lewis Hamilton who had a relatively unassuming race beyond an early tassel with Franco Colapinto.
There was an ensuing game of cat-and-mouse between Leclerc and Antonelli for P1, but was eventually held by Leclerc. This was much to the Monegasque’s benefit as in Lap 6 Pierre Gasly and Isack Hadjar both crashed as a result of collision with Lawson and a run into the wall respectively, causing a safety car deployment that saw all three cars forced out the race. Only Max Verstappen made use of the cheap pit stop offered up by way of the safety car, as the rest of the drivers opted to stay out. In the Safety Car restart Leclerc maintained the lead briefly before being overtaken by Lando Norris, before the Ferarri driver and Antonelli battled it out for P2.
A few spells of rain threatened to derail the race, yet the major players began crawl into the pits between laps 24 and 30 opting for hard tyres which allowed for the Mercedes to both valuable gain places as Antonelli came out ahead of Norris and Russel ahead of Leclerc and Piastri.
George Russell, who after being overtaken by an incredibly speedy post-pit Piastri and Leclerc remained firmly in 6th – an embarrassing result in comparison to Antonelli’s first place finish before making it back to fourth on the last few laps. Comparatively the resilient performances by Verstappen and raw pace of Norris, suggests that if anyone is going to challenge the Italian for the title – it might not be his own team mate.
Verstappen’s early pit gambit allowed him to make up valuable track position, leading the race for a brief stint before being overtaken by Antonelli and Norris, who then sped off into the distance. The early lap see-sawing of first place, however did not resume following the safety car as despite concerns over gearbox the Italian remained firmly in front of the Briton.
In the penultimate corner of the penultimate lap, Piastri hurried past Leclerc to round out Mclarens first double podium of the season. Leclerc then spun out, but managed to cling onto the car, but the loss of momentum opened way to a last minute overtake by both Russell, who’s rear-wing was dragging, and Verstappen in the final seconds of the race.
Alpine remained a strong midfield team this weekend, with Franco Colapinto scoring his first points of the season, with a P8 finish. The Williams’ of Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon rounded out the top ten respectively with a promising double points finish for Williams. Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg was fitted with a new rear wing on the second lap before retiring and beyond that the midfield, for the rest of the race remained relatively unassuming bar the occasional pop up of track limits from ceartian drivers, often failing to away from the top players.
Issues regarding Max Verstappen, George Russel and Charles Leclerc are all being investigated by the stewards following the race leading to a potential last minuet alteration in the standings in the final hours of the day.
WHEEL2WHEEL REPORTS 