Lando Norris has beaten his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri by nearly four seconds to victory in the sprint race at the Miami Grand Prix. The world champion made a great start from pole as Kimi Antonelli got bogged down, leaving him unable to fight Norris off the line and losing position at the start.<\/p>\n
McLaren went into this weekend looking for a reset, and they certainly delivered following the break and could now be a serious rival to Mercedes in this championship. Norris delivered a champion\u2019s drive to control the race as the sport mourns the death of former driver and Paralympic champion Alex Zanardi, whose death was announced overnight.<\/p>\n
The Englishman soon pulled away after the start and never looked to come under pressure from Piastri, at a circuit where his rise began two years ago. The first non-Mercedes driver to claim a pole position this season on Friday, ending the Silver Arrows’ perfect Grand Prix\/Sprint record in 2026 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Charles Leclerc brought his Ferrari home third; he finished two and a half seconds behind the Melbournian after their squabble at the start after they passed Antonelli. \u00a0The Italian was nearly coming under pressure from his Mercedes teammate George Russell as they traded positions during the sprint.<\/p>\n
However, while Antonelli was fourth on the road, a series of breaches of track limits during his fight with Russell saw him awarded a five-second time penalty, dropping him to sixth. In all five races, Antonelli has made a poor start and was challenged by Russell as they went around the first corner side by side, with the Briton on the inside.<\/p>\n
Antonelli fought off that challenge, but Russell overtook him on lap seven at the first corner. On the next lap, at Turn Eleven, he divided into fourth and held the place to the end. His penalty reduced his lead over Russell in the championship to seven points.<\/p>\n
Norris, who wins the sprint from pole position, \u201cIt was a good race, nice to be back on the top step, even if it is the sprint. It was a good day for us, massive job to the team in bringing the upgrades. It feels like everyone is saying the same thing, but ours have really helped this weekend. Happy to get it done for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piastri, who finishes the sprint in second place: “It took a little bit to stay with Lando but overall a good day, well good morning. We’ll see what we can do in the qualifying, everyone would’ve learned a lot but so have we, so we’ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leclerc, who finishes third in the sprint race: “The upgrades worked well, so thanks to the team for their massive work. I am satisfied with that, I am not satisfied with P3. But McLaren have done a big step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mercedes is the only team in the top four not to bring upgrades, in contrast to several upgrades that McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull all brought, which were represented in sprint qualifying as Norris pipped Kimi Antonelli to pole with Piastri completing the top three.<\/p>\n
Mercedes had won every race this season, both sprint and full, but McLaren arrived in Miami with an upgraded package, which has brought it back into the fight. But the grip on the championship was broken yesterday when Norris took pole.<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen was fifth following a race long batter with Lewis Hamilton, the former title rivals banging wheels in a hard-fought battle for fifth. Though the penalty for Antonelli puts him a second ahead of the seven-time champion.<\/p>\n
But the move ended with both cars off the track, and Verstappen was advised to hand the place back to his 2021 title rival. Two laps later, though, Verstappen was through for good, out-braking the Ferrari into the final corner.<\/p>\n
Pierre Gasly scored eighth, finishing four seconds ahead of Isack Hadjar, who split the Alpine\u2019s finishing a second and a half ahead of Franco Colapinto. Gasly made his move into the points early on passing the Red Bull and his teammate on the opening lap, then held eighth for the remainder of the race.<\/p>\n
Gabriel Bortoletto brought his Audi home eleventh, as his teammate, Nico Hulkenberg, failed to start the race after his car caught fire going to the grid. While the Brazilian made a good start, hopes of points soon faded, and that left him eight and a half seconds ahead of the Haas duo, Esteban Ocon nearly four tenths ahead of Ollie Bearman.<\/p>\n
Carlos Sainz was eight and a half tenths ahead of Liam Lawson. Sergio Perez split the Aston Martins; the Cadillac driver finished six tenths behind Fernando Alonso and ahead of Lance Stroll by nearly a second. But Aston Martin and Cadillac appear at this stage too far off the midfield to fight.<\/p>\n
Alex Albon, stopped for a front wing change late on, was the penultimate finisher in nineteenth ahead of Valtteri Bottas by a second and a half. Hulkenberg being joined on the sidelines by Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad, who was due to start from the pit lane but never made it out on track.<\/p>\n
Lando Norris has beaten his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri by nearly four seconds to victory in the sprint race at the Miami Grand Prix. The world champion made a great start from pole as Kimi Antonelli got bogged down, leaving him unable to fight Norris off the line and losing position at the start. McLaren<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2339,390,709,737,894,1131,1287,1290,1313,1315,1316,1317,1318,1475,1881,1884,2081],"class_list":["post-15883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-race-reports","tag-2339","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-ferrari","tag-florida","tag-hard-rock-stadium","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-mclaren-mercedes","tag-miami","tag-miami-gardens","tag-miami-gp","tag-miami-grand-prix","tag-miami-international-autodrome","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sprint","tag-sprint-race","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15884,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15883\/revisions\/15884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}