Miami Grand Prix: A surprise Sprint pole, Ferrari chaos and another Oscar Piastri win
This weekend saw Formula 1 return to Miami for the fourth year in a row, a weekend headlined by two incredible races, a new face on pole and more Papaya victories.
In this article, Sports News Blitz’s Oliver Carter takes us through all the action from what was an exciting weekend at the Miami International Autodrome circuit.
Record-breaking Sprint Qualifying
After a jumbled Free Practice Session early on Friday, Sprint Qualifying was up for anyone's taking.
Whilst most expected the McLarens to lead the pack once again, barely anyone could have seen Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli taking pole position for the shortened race.
Following an incredible lap, Antonelli sat on provisional pole with both McLarens yet to cross the line.
However, neither were able to top the incredible time set by the young Italian.
Antonelli is by far the youngest driver to get a pole position at just 18 years old, destroying Sebastian Vettel’s previous record of 21 years old.
While he claimed pole, Oscar Piastri was behind him in P2 and Lando Norris in P3.
Sprint
Even before the Sprint began, a car was out of the race. Due to the heavy weather conditions, cars were being sent out on ‘recon laps’ to see if the track was driveable.
Whilst every other team was sent out on full Wet tyres, Ferrari sent out both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton on Intermediate tyres.
This turned out to be a big issue for Leclerc as he aquaplaned into the wall at Turn 4 snapping off his rear suspension.
After a 30-minute delay due to unexpected heavy rain, the Sprint finally got underway.
The Sprint started with Antonelli and Piastri side by side into Turn 1, while neither driver wanted to back out of the battle, Antonelli was the one who lost out as he went off the track, sending him down three positions.
On Lap 13, as the track had been drying out Max Verstappen and Antonelli came into the pits to change from Intermediate to Medium tyres.
However, this would not be a routine stop as Verstappen was unsafely released from his pit box straight into the side of the young Mercedes driver.
This incident landed Verstappen an unfortunate 10-second penalty and also meant that Antonelli couldn't get into his pit box, effectively forcing him to take a drive-through penalty, having to drive through the pits without stopping.
Antonelli did manage to pit on the following lap, however, it ruined any chance at a top-three finish for the pole sitter.
Just one lap later, Lap 14, a battle for P8, the last point scoring position in a Sprint race, between Liam Lawson and Fernando Alonso, saw Lawson pushed off the track.
Despite being off the track the Kiwi didn't give up on the position leading to him spinning Alonso into the wall, and out of the race.
This move landed Lawson a five-second time penalty and bought out the Safety Car.
The final three laps of the race finished under the safety car with Norris in P1, Piastri in P2 and Hamilton with a great result in P3.
Following some post-race time penalties Antonelli snuck into P8, earning a point after his pole position.
Meanwhile, Lance Stroll got a shocking finish of P5 for Aston Martin, a car that is widely considered the second worst on the grid.
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Grand Prix Qualifying
Just hours after the chaos of the Sprint, Qualifying got underway.
The first main talking point of Qualifying came in Q2 as Hamilton was unable to do better than P12.
Just hours after finishing third in the Sprint, the seven-time world champion couldn’t get through to the final Qualifying session.
Q3 seemed relatively normal with McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bulls and Williams fielding all their drivers.
But due to Hamilton’s elimination, Esteban Ocon in the Haas managed his way into the final Qualifying session.
To end Qualifying, on his final run, Verstappen put an incredible time on the board but with both McLaren drivers and both Mercedes drivers yet to finish.
However, neither McLaren nor Mercedes were able to beat the flying Dutchman with Norris just 0.065 and Antonelli 0.067 seconds behind - Verstappen took his 3rd pole of the season.
The main event
With Verstappen on pole and Norris starting just behind in second, many expected to see an early battle as the two drivers have a history of coming to blows and having close battles with one another.
It only took two turns for that battle to become slightly controversial.
As Norris attempted a move around the outside of Turn 2, Verstappen kept to the racing line, forcing Norris off the track and all the way down to sixth.
After a short investigation from the stewards, no penalty was given out, sparking a debate with many fans both agreeing and disagreeing with the ruling.
That was not the only early battle. At Turn 1, Lawson in the VCARB and Jack Doohan in the Alpine had a coming together that punctured Doohan’s tyre and sent him out the race.
While Lawson continued on, the damage grew to be too much to continue with, eventually leading the Kiwi to retire from the race on Lap 40.
By Lap 9, Norris had managed to recover to P3, overtaking Carlos Sainz, George Russell and Antonelli.
Lap 9 also saw the start of a battle for the lead between Verstappen and Piastri, this battle saw incredible defending from the reigning world champion holding off Piastri all the way until Lap 14.
Going into Turn 1, Piastri applied the pressure to Verstappen forcing the Red Bull driver to lock up his front tyres, sending the Aussie into the lead of the race.
This battle took so long that Norris was able to close the six-second gap between himself and second place all the way down to one and a half seconds.
By the end of Lap 14, Norris was right on the back of Verstappen trying to improve and make the race a McLaren one-two.
Verstappen once again showed off how good he is at defending, however on Lap 17 Norris had a good chance to overtake the Dutchman.
Unfortunately, he broke too late and pushed both cars off the track. Miraculously, the cars managed to evade each other as well as the walls.
One lap later, Norris was finally able to get past Verstappen on the long Miami back straight, moving the Brit up to second place and putting both McLarens in the lead of the race.
Much later in the race on Lap 30, Haas rookie Ollie Bearman had an engine failure that brought out the Virtual Safety Car.
Thanks to a well-timed pitstop, George Russell was able to undercut Verstappen, effectively overtaking him via the pit stop.
Lap 31 saw an incredible moment for Williams as Alex Albon was able to overtake Antonelli through Turn 1, and just seconds later his team-mate Carlos Sainz overtook Leclerc through the same corner advancing their drivers into P5 and P7 respectively.
Following another Virtual Safety Car due to Gabriel Bortolleto’s Sauber having an engine failure, Ferrari saw an incredible moment as both Leclerc and Hamilton were able to overtake Sainz in the same corner.
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All eyes on the mess in Red
As the Ferraris grew their advantage, they had some contentious moments over the team radio, as Hamilton thought he was faster due to his fresher tyres, he believed he should be let through by his team-mate.
This decision took Ferrari three laps to make, finally telling Leclerc to let his team-mate through.
However, not long after, Ferrari ordered the drivers to swap the positions back once again.
After being told to allow Leclerc through, Hamilton received a radio message saying “Sainz 1.4 Seconds behind.”
Hamilton let his temper show as he responded to his race engineer saying, “You want me to let him past as well?”
Piastri extends his advantage
After taking the lead early on Oscar Piastri never gave it up, cruising home to yet another victory.
This marked the third win in a row and the fourth of the season for the Australian, who retained his championship lead.
Norris crossed the finish line in second place, just four and a half seconds behind his team-mate and 33 seconds ahead of Russell in third, once again showing how dominant McLaren have been.
Looking ahead
Formula 1 next visits Imola for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, where the cars will debut a new, even softer Pirelli tyre.
Norris will look to close the 16-point gap between him and his team-mate at the top of the championship.
Verstappen meanwhile will look to push his way back on the podium, and Antonelli will hope he can replicate his amazing weekend of Qualifying whilst keeping position in the race.
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