2025 Miami Grand Prix Recap: Piastri Wins, McLaren Remain Dominant

After a weekend in which Formula 1 finally came face to face with Florida's unpredictable weather, Oscar Piastri of McLaren went home with the win in the Miami Grand Prix.

The 24-year-old Australian driver brought the team its second win in a row in the race, beating both his teammate and last year's race winner, Lando Norris, and reigning champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull.

Though pole sitter Verstappen managed to get ahead at the start of the race, the papaya-colored cars of McLaren managed to chase down both sprint winner Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes in second and then, after some incredible, balletic racing, the Dutch driver. Piastri then spent the remainder of the race in first with Norris behind, while Verstappen eventually fell further back into fourth. George Russell of Mercedes rounded out the podium in third.

Much of the back half of the race was marked by team troubles at Ferrari, where poor management caused issues for both drivers. As Charles LeClerc and Lewis Hamilton found themselves back to back chasing Antonelli in the midfield, Hamilton fought to go ahead of his teammate in the hopes that his fresher tires would help catch the Mercedes. "You want me to sit here the whole race?" he snapped at one point. The two drivers would trade positions twice before eventually failing to catch the 18-year-old Italian driver, and Hamilton nearly crashed trying to fend off Carlos Sainz of Williams on the final lap.

Though Hamilton won the sprint race in China and came third in the sprint here in Miami, he's still struggling to find form a few races into his stint at Ferrari. The pairing of the six-time world champion and the legendary team has been heavily publicized since it was announced early last year.

Several drivers failed to finish, including Jack Doohan of RB, whose tires blew out after a lap one collision with teammate Liam Lawson. The latter bailed out midway through the race after a mechanical issue with his car. Gabriel Bortoletto of Kick Sauber and Oliver Bearman of Haas also left the race due to similar issues.

The win puts Piastri in the lead for the Drivers Championship with 131 points, ahead of Norris' 115 and Verstappen's 91. McLaren also furthers its dominant lead in the Constructors' Championship with a dominant 246 points. Mercedes sits in second with 141 and Red Bull in third with 105.

The weekend marks further success for McLaren, who become the first team to win a sprint race and a grand prix in the same weekend after Norris' win on Saturday. Piastri also completes a hat trick after winning the previous two races in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, becoming the first McLaren driver since Mika Hakkinen in the early 2000s to win three in a row.

The race had been threatened by potential heavy thunderstorms. Until now, the Miami Grand Prix had avoided the tempestuous downpours that typify a Florida summer, but not this time. Massive amounts of rain had been dumped on supporting events earlier in the day, but the track remained dry throughout the 57 laps.

The same couldn't be said of the chaotic sprint race on Saturday afternoon, which was delayed briefly due to severe weather. Even before the race began, the weather took out LeClerc of Ferrari, who crashed into the circuit wall on a practice lap. Multiple athletes complained of severe visibility issues during the race, including Verstappen as well as Hadjar and Lawson of RB, all of whom reported their visors were, in the words of the Dutch driver, "absolutely fucked."

When the sprint finally got underway, Kimi Antonelli, who had become the youngest-ever pole sitter the day before, found himself unable to follow up on the record-breaking feat after being edged off the track by Piastri up to the first turn; he eventually took seventh. The rest of the race was marked by crashes and other incidents: A pit lane collision between Verstappen and Antonelli that earned the former a ten-second penalty, a busted wheel for Carlos Sainz of Williams, and a bad crash between Lawson and Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin that caused the race to end under a safety car.

In the end, Norris and Piastri of McLaren went home one and two, respectively, while Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari managed to scrape by onto the podium in third after a well-timed tire change.

Next, Formula 1 moves to Italy for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the legendary Imola track — Ferrari's home race — in two weeks' time. The next Miami Grand Prix, meanwhile, will return in 2026 and continue to be held annually until at least 2041 after the race announced a 10-year contract extension on Friday.