McLaren domination is starting to look like Oscar Piastri domination as he scored his fourth win in the last five grands prix in Miami.
Had it not been for an unfortunately-timed Virtual Safety Car, he would have won the sprint race too.
Piastri’s grand prix victory was his third in a row. He is the only driver besides Max Verstappen to have won three consecutive grands prix since 2021.
With Lando Norris following him home in second place, this was McLaren’s second one-two finish of the year. It is also the first time a team has taken one-twos in both the sprint race and a grand prix at the same event. This was the 20th sprint event since the format’s introduction four years ago.
The closest non-McLaren to Piastri at the end of Sunday’s race was George Russell’s Mercedes, 37.644 seconds behind in third place. McLaren therefore scored their most emphatic victory since Lewis Hamilton’s crushing triumph in the rain-hit 2008 British Grand Prix, where second-placed Nick Heidfeld finished 68.577s behind in his BMW Sauber.
Piastri’s sixth grand prix win of his career means he now has more victories than Norris, and as many as Sergio Perez. Other drivers on half-a-dozen wins include world champions John Surtees and Jochen Rindt plus Tony Brooks, Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques Laffite, Riccardo Patrese and Ralf Schumacher.
It was a frustrating event for Verstappen who not only lost points to both McLaren drivers in both races, but Russell as well. He has fallen 32 points off the lead and therefore won’t be leading the standings after the next race. That hasn’t been the case at any round since the first Miami Grand Prix three years ago.
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Verstappen did claim the 43rd pole position of his career with the fastest lap ever seen at Miami International Autodrome. The record was broken 24 hours earlier by Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who claimed his first sprint race pole position.
However Verstappen’s formidable record for converting pole position into victory in grands prix is coming under pressure. Out of his first 34 pole position he won 29 times, but from his last six pole positions he has only two victories. His results in Miami highlight his changing fortunes: Verstappen won the first two Miami grands prix without taking pole position, but did not win from pole in the last two.
Russell scored his fourth podium finish of the season, giving him one more than Verstappen. Alexander Albon equalled his best result as a Williams driver with fifth place, the same as he scored in Australia.
Despite the penalty which cost Albon fourth place in the sprint race, Williams took their biggest points haul at a grand prix since the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. They are now on 37 points, making this their best season since that year, when they totalled 83 points over the season, a target which looks entirely realistic given their current rate of scoring (and the extra points available at additional rounds and sprint races compared to eight years ago).
Finally, Jack Doohan’s widely-expected ousting from Alpine leaves him with potentially one of the shortest careers in history, assuming he doesn’t return to the grid. Exactly how far back you have to go for a comparable example depends on how you regard the various substitutes and one-off appearances over the years.
Pietro Fittipaldi started just two races at the end of 2020, as a substitute for Romain Grosjean at Haas. At the first of those Jack Aitken made a one-off appearance on the grid in place of Russell at Williams (himself standing in for Hamilton at Mercedes).
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But these were both substitutes who, unlike Doohan, weren’t billed as full-time seat holders. The same goes for other recent drivers with brief careers such as Andre Lotterer, who started one race for Caterham at Spa in 2014.
Alexander Rossi could be considered the nearest thing to a driver in Doohan’s situation. He concluded the 2015 season for Marussia, starting just five races, but was not retained for the following year.
For a driver who was dropped mid-season, you have to go back even further to Franck Montagny, who started six races for Super Aguri in 2006. He was dropped to make way for Sakon Yamamoto.
Over to you
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Miami Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
