Three in a row Piastri wins in Miami to lead McLaren one-two

Miami Gardens, United States: 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.

With Norris pipping Piastri in Saturday´s sprint race, McLaren picked up maximum points from the weekend and Piastri heads out of Miami with a 16 point lead over his team-mate. 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.

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.