Oscar Piastri wins at Miami for 3rd straight F1 victory, 4th win of season for championship leader

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Oscar Piastri maintained his advantage in the Formula 1 championship fight by winning the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday for his fourth win through six races this season.

Piastri has now won three consecutive F1 races for McLaren Racing, where he and teammate Lando Norris are trying to dethrone four-time defending champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull.

Piastri is the first McLaren driver to win three consecutive F1 races in 28 years; Mika Hakkinen did it with a win in the 1997 season finale and then victories in the first two races of 1998.

He widened his lead over Norris in the driver standings to 16 points, while Verstappen trails Piastri by 32 points.

Norris earned his first Grand Prix victory last year at Miami when he snapped Verstappen’s two-year winning streak at the course surrounding Hard Rock Stadium. Norris also won the sprint race on Saturday — Piastri dominated but a late safety car cost him the victory — but Verstappen won the pole in qualifying.

Verstappen, who announced the birth of his first child Friday morning, has been determined to disprove the myth that fatherhood would make him a more conservative driver. It was evident as he darted away at the start and then aggressively held off Norris’ challenge for the lead.

The Red Bull and McLaren were side-by-side and Norris was trying to edge ahead of the Dutchman, but he ran off track and lost four spots. Norris said Verstappen forced him off track and there was nothing he could do but try to avoid running into a wall — but F1 took no action against Verstappen.

“What can I say? If I don’t go for it, people complain. If I go for it, people complain,” Norris said. “You can’t win. But it really just how it is with Max — it’s crash or their pass.”

Norris recovered and picked his way back toward the front, but not before Piastri took control away from Verstappen on the 14th of 57 laps. McLaren has decided it will allow Piastri and Norris to race each other cleanly without team orders, and Norris was cleared to challenge his Australian teammate for the victory.

In the waning laps, Norris was able to close the gap but could never catch Piastri and settled for second in a 1-2 finish for McLaren. The two held a nearly 40-second advantage over George Russell of Mercedes, who finished third.

Verstappen faded to fourth.

“It’s just incredible, the hard work that’s gone in,” Piastri said of McLaren. “I remember two years ago here in Miami, we were genuinely the slowest team. I think we got lapped twice and to now have won the Grand Prix by over 35 seconds to third is an unbelievable result of the hard work of every single person.”

Alex Albon of Williams was fifth, Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes was sixth and Charles Leclerc was seventh after Ferrari ordered Lewis Hamilton to give his teammate the position in the closing laps. Hamilton was eighth.

Carlos Sainz Jr. was ninth for Williams and Yuki Tsunoda was 10th for Red Bull.

Doohan in doubt

Jack Doohan ran into another car on the opening lap and then crashed on the second lap — a showing that won’t quiet chatter the rookie is on the verge of being replaced at Alpine by Franco Colapinto.

There have been media reports in Argentina that Colapinto will replace Doohan at F1’s next race, later this month in Italy. It was dismissed at the start of the Miami weekend by Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes, who indicated “as it is today” the Australian would still be in the seat at Imola.

“I think it was a sponsor from Argentina off-camera giving his view on Franco, when he’s going to be in the car. I’m sure there’s a lot of people in Argentina who’d like him in the car this Sunday,” Oakes said about the speculation. “We’ve been pretty open as a team that that’s just noise. Jack needs to continue doing a good job. But it’s natural that there’s always speculation there.

“As it is today, Jack is our driver along with Pierre (Gasly),” he continued. “We’ve been pretty clear on that. We always evaluate, but today that is the case.”

Doohan, who didn’t complete two laps Sunday and finished last, has yet to score a point this season through six races. His best finish was 13th at the Chinese Grand Prix.

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing