Oscar Piastri extended his lead at the top of the 2025 Drivers’ Championship with an impressive victory at the 2025 Miami Grand Prix, with McLaren teammate Lando Norris taking P2.
Pole-sitter Max Verstappen was only able to finish in fourth after a race that featured plenty of, whilst Mercedes‘ George Russell secured yet another podium by finishing third.
It took just one turn for the first major flashpoint of the race to come as Verstappen locked up into Turn 1 and then appeared to force Norris off the track in Turn 2 as the McLaren driver tried to make his way past. At the same time, there was a collision between Jack Doohan and Liam Lawson which resulted in the Alpine driver getting a puncture and having to retire from the race in Miami.
After a virtual safety car, the McLaren‘s were making up for lost time as Piastri jumped Antonelli to take P2 and Norris moved past Albon to get into P5 in Miami. It only took a handful more laps before Norris got past Russell and Antonelli was the next car in his sights. With the radio messages to various drivers showing rain on the way, it was clear that a lot was going to change in this race. In the meantime, Norris reached P3 by getting past Antonelli.
Whilst Norris was carving through the field, Piastri had eaten away at the gap to Verstappen and was battling the Dutchman into multiple corners on Lap 11. After three laps of jousting, Piastri eventually got past Verstappen just as the odd spots of rain started to show up on the cameras.
By Lap 17, Norris did get past Verstappen but the Dutchman soon took the place back as Norris let him through, knowing the original move happened with all four wheels off of the track. They swapped yet again on Lap 18 with Verstappen repeatedly locking up his brakes and complaining about the car to his team.
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In the midst of all of this fighting, Piastri had pulled out a nine second gap over Norris and Verstappen in Miami. By just under halfway through the race, the McLaren‘s were lapping a second per lap quicker than anyone else.
On Lap 29, Oliver Bearman suffered a problem and a virtual safety car was called. That prompted Hamilton to pit at a convenient time, but Leclerc had already gone past the pits. The McLarens had also not long gone past, and they were both called into the pits.
They still managed to move onto the hards whilst the VSC was still in force, as did Russell and Leclerc. The Mercedes man managed to come out ahead of Verstappen who had pitted before the VSC. At the same time, Hamilton jumped Tsunoda in the pits and then the Red Bull man was handed a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
With 32 laps gone, Doohan, Bearman and Gabriel Bortoleto were the three retirees, with the latter two being due to engine problems. Bortoleto couldn’t make it back to the pits and another VSC was called as he had stopped on the back straight.
Hamilton soon find himself tucked up behind Leclerc and he was told by Ferrari to stay in Leclerc‘s DRS. Hamilton told the team that this was ‘not good teamwork’ and two or three laps later than would have been ideal, they did swap the cars.
The British driver was on the mediums and clearly had more pace in hand to chase Antonelli in P6. At the same time, Lawson became the fourth retiree from the race as the damage from that Turn 1 incident with Doohan proved too severe.
Supreme pace from McLaren and Piastri in Miami
As the race developed, Norris slowly ate away at Piastri‘s lead and with 10 laps to go, only four seconds separated the two McLarens. Despite the scruffy start in which Norris plummetted down the order and Piastri failed to get past Verstappen, the sheer pace of that McLaren car started to make itself known.
It is already the prevailing opinion that the McLaren is the fastest car on the track in 2025, but this race exhibited it better than any other. For much of the second half of the race, Norris in P2 had a +30 second lead over Russell in third place. There was no doubt that it would be a one-two from the British team, but there did seem to be a question as to what the order would be.
Norris impressively chipped away at the lead Piastri built up in Miami and got within 3.5 seconds of the Australian. In the end, he couldn’t quite apply enough pressure to force Piastri into a mistake. This sort of scenario could prove very common as the season progresses and we will surely get some more tense battles between Norris and Piastri.
