MIAMI GP – Oscar Piastri fastest from Charles Leclerc by three and a half tenths in practice
Oscar Piastri was fastest in practice for the Miami Grand Prix, the McLaren driver set a 27.128 to put himself three and a half tenths ahead of Charles Leclerc. Piastri set his fastest time just before the session was red flagged when Ollie Bearman crashed bringing the session to an end.
The Australian managed to complete his soft tyre run before Bearman lost control and spun his Haas at the Turn Eleven-Twelve complex, just as the final runs were being completed. Piastri himself had his own moment when he brushed the wall on a used set of tyres but avoided major contact with the wall.
Max Verstappen put his Red Bull third nearly eight hundredths behind the Ferrari, after confirmation on Friday morning by his partner Kelly Piquet that she had given birth to their first child, Lilly. The Dutchman was just over a tenth faster than both Williams, with Carlos Sainz going nearly three-tenths faster than his teammate Alex Albon.
Red Bull are the only team at the front to have brought significant upgrades to Miami, in the form of an updated floor, but the truncated nature of the practice allowance made it difficult to assess the impact.
The weekend’s only practice session saw the top three separated by roughly over half a second, though McLaren still looks to have a sizeable advantage going into sprint qualifying later this afternoon. Bearman’s crash prevented Lando Norris from showing his true pace leaving him twelfth, just under a second and a half off his teammate.
George Russell couldn’t find the same pace he had shown on the medium tyre when switching to softs after Bearman’s crash, which left him to slip to seventh. The Englishman had been fastest early on during the first the runs on the medium, but dropped down the order, and was nine-tenths off the outright pace.
Russell was nearly three-quarters ahead of the second Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese driver spilt the two Mercedes after he went three-quarters of a second ahead of Kimi Antonelli, while Fernando Alonso completed the top ten going just over a tenth and a quarter behind the Italian.
Norris’s difficulty in finding a window and the timing of the red flag left him two hundredths behind the Racing Bull of Liam Lawson. The Englishman will certainly be able to bounce back in sprint qualifying following he took his maiden win a year ago in Miami.
Norris had trailed by more than three-tenths after the first sector but almost halved that deficit in the second sector, leaving uncertainty over what the ultimate margin between the McLarens would have been.
The McLaren driver was just over a tenth and a half ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who also missed on an opportunity to complete a final laps. They would likely have been near their respective teammates who topped the times, roughly a second off.
Hamilton was just under two hundredths ahead of the Sauber’s, with Nico Hulkenberg just under two-tenths faster than teammate Gabriel Bortoleto.
Bearman ended the session sixteenth, he was nine hundredths ahead of Pierre Gasly while the Englishman’s teammate Esteban Ocon split the Alpine’s. Ocon was just over tenths and three-quarters ahead of Jack Doohan, while Lance Stroll completed the field