05/05/2025
NEWS STORY
McLaren scored the maximum 58 points this weekend in Miami: first and second yesterday in the Sprint and another one-two in today's Grand Prix.
Yesterday, Lando Norris was first past the chequered flag, followed home by Oscar Piastri, but today the positions were reversed, the Australian recording his fourth Grand Prix win of the season, the third in a row and the sixth of his career. It was McLaren's 51st one-two finish, its second this season.
Joining them on the podium was George Russell (Mercedes) his fourth top three finish of the year, with one second and three third places.
As predicted prior to the event, on the grid the drivers were split into two groups, 13 of them opting for the Medium tyre for the first stint, thus adhering to the theoretically quicker strategy and the rest who went with the Hard, banking on being able to delay the pit stop window, in the hope of making the most of a safety car period in which to pit, or to deal with the possibility of rain, the threat of which was there throughout the race.
Two drivers shared the longest stint of 36 laps on a set of Hards, Nico Hulkenberg in the Sauber and Lance Stroll in the Aston Martin. As for the Medium, 29 laps was the longest stint, accomplished by both McLaren drivers and the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc who drove his first stint on the C4 and Lewis Hamilton who used it for his second stint.
Mario Isola: "It was a very straightforward race as far as the tyres were concerned. From the little data gathered over the weekend it had become clear that, despite bringing a trio of compounds one step softer than last year's in order to create more strategy choices, it would probably still be a one-stop race and so it proved to be. There was very limited degradation on the C3 and the C4, in fact on the latter it was even less than expected. That explains why drivers who started on the Medium were able to extend their first stint to the halfway point of the race or even further, especially as the Virtual Safety Car made it easier for the leaders to switch to the Hard compound.
"The low tyre degradation also contributed to the many battles, especially early on when drivers were able to push as hard as they wanted. It was a different scenario to the one we witnessed in Suzuka for example, a month ago. The track characteristics here are very different, with overtaking possibilities, and it also demonstrates how difficult it is to have everything in place to produce the great show that the fans deserve to see."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Miami here.