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.
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.
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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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.
2025 Miami Grand Prix
- Nothing for Ferrari to learn from Miami team orders episode – Vasseur
- Hamilton proud of Ferrari as ‘we’re taking a beating from media and people’s comments’
- McLaren legality never in doubt says Piastri as FIA’s post-race check clears car
- Albon did not disobey team orders in Miami says Vowles after Sainz’s complaint
- McLaren score their most emphatic win since Hamilton’s 2008 Silverstone triumph
Sumedh
8th May 2025, 13:12
One could argue Luca Badoer”s Ferrari career was just 2 races. He was a substitute but was supposed to see out the season.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
8th May 2025, 13:51
At least he’d had a 48 race F1 career prior to that tho. I’ll forever remember Nurburgring 1999…
GeeMac (@geemac)
12th May 2025, 8:38
@eurobrun Don’t mention Nurburing 99, thinking of wee Luca crying next to his broken Minardi still makes me want to cry.
Jere (@jerejj)
8th May 2025, 13:45
Andrea Antonelli became the youngest driver to ever start in pole position, be that for sprint or race, taking this record away from Sebastian Vettel, who qualified on pole for the 2008 Italian GP at the age of 21 years & 72 days.
The sprint became the first Miami GP weekend session to feature wet-weather running.
Sauber had both the first & last pit stop in the race.
William also achieved their third double-point finish this season.
For the second consecutive race, Nico Hulkenberg was the highest-finishing lapped driver & like in Mexico last season, he got lapped on the final lap.
Lance Stroll was the last finisher for the second time this season.
Jack Doohan’s second opening-lap retirement in F1 & in what was most likely the last F1 race in which he drove, he didn’t last even a full lap, like his predecessor’s final race at Alpine, albeit he at least survived almost two sectors, while Esteban Ocon only survived until T1 in the most recent Qatar GP.
Jere (@jerejj)
8th May 2025, 14:35
I forgot to add the first time around that both ends among the finishing drivers were occupied by a single team since McLaren scored a 1-2 & Aston Martin drivers the two lowest finishers.
Jojo
8th May 2025, 16:16
Alonso also DNF’d in his last race for Alpine in Abu Dhabi 2022.
Jere (@jerejj)
8th May 2025, 16:32
Yes, but not on the opening lap.
Simon
8th May 2025, 20:52
Still no original credit – have read these, in exact same order, elsewhere.
“RaceFans always endeavours to credit original sources” – maybe you could do the same…
anon
9th May 2025, 9:50
And when are you going to start providing those same credits to those whose work you have been copying?
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
8th May 2025, 15:21
Well, Yuji Ide started the season as a full time racer, and lasted 4 rounds
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
8th May 2025, 20:51
…and was replaced by Montagny!
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
8th May 2025, 17:16
As a lifelong McLaren fan, I can tell you that this has been a LONG time coming!
The sense of relief is huge after the best part of a decade in the wilderness.
Fingers-crossed they can keep this momentum going and give us a proper scrap between Oscar and Lando that runs the whole season.
Edvaldo
8th May 2025, 17:31
What a history. By late 2018, Mclaren was the worst team in F1, and they no longer had the GP2 engine excuse. It was all on them.
When they announced they were putting their technology center for sale, that couldn’t be good news, yet just a few years later, here we are.
The 2nd WCC is a done deal, as they’re not losing that, and WDC seems very likely as well. What a job these guys have been doing.
Now let’s hope Williams gets there too, sooner or later.
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
8th May 2025, 20:13
Verstappen’s pole margin of 0.065s is the largest of his 3 poles this season.
2nd race in a row where Verstappen has been on pole, Norris has set the fastest lap, and Piastri has won.
First time this has happened with 3 different drivers since Australia 1986 and Brazil 1987 (Mansell on pole, Piquet fastest lap, Prost won).
Miami has never been won from the front row.
Verstappen finished lower in his first race after becoming a father to one of Kelly Piquet’s children than Daniil Kvyat managed in his first such race.
The Sprint was the first time that Verstappen reached the chequered flag but was classified outside the points in any race since Belgium 2016.
Tsunoda has exactly 100 career points. 6 of his 9 points this season have come in Sprints.
Both the Sprint and the GP saw the McLaren driver who started 2nd finish 2nd behind a driver other than the pole-sitter.
Thanks to statsf1 and the official F1 site for some of these.
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
9th May 2025, 22:15
There was also Luiz Razia, who was signed to race for Marussia in 2013 but due to sponsorship issues left the team after 0 races to be replaced by Jules Bianchi.
Dominique (@tryneplague)
9th May 2025, 22:47
From 1955 to 2024, 16 times a driver won 4 out of the 6 first races in a season like Piastri did so far (not counting those who won 5/6 or 6/6). 15 of them won the WDC. The only one who didn’t was Lauda in 76, and that was because of his near fatal accident in Germany which made him miss 3 points finishes. He still finished only 1 point behind Hunt.