Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris reflect on tackling Max Verstappen in F1 Miami GP, with the Dutchman along with Christian Horner and Andrea Stella sharing their views.
It was a bold move from Red Bull’s Verstappen to retain the F1 Miami GP lead, especially against McLaren’s Norris at the start when the Brit lost four places to sixth. The stewards gave all-clear to the Dutchman, as McLaren’s Piastri took things in his own hand after passing Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
As the Australian started to close down on Verstappen, teammate Norris cleared Alexander Albon, George Russell and Antonelli to slot back up to third. The fifth between the Australian and the Dutchman allowed the Brit to be within the DRS, when the former managed to clear the latter.
It was not easy for Piastri as he was made hard to work, but he eventually pushed Verstappen to make a mistake at Turn 1. Norris did not have it easy either. The Brit went off track at Turn 11 while overtaking, which forced him to give back the place. He tried outside line at Turn 1, but was off still.
He eventually got it done but by then it was too late as Piastri had checked out. No matter how much the Brit tried, the Australian had it under control to win F1 Miami GP. The Australian agreed that it wasn’t easy but he changed his tactics to get through eventually for the lead.
Norris was a bit more vocal in stating that Verstappen ruined his own race after missing out on a podium. Team boss Stella felt the Brit could have been a bit more patient at the start as he would have cleared the Dutchman considering the pace advantage. He didn’t mind the aggression though.
But he didn’t think either Piastri or Norris did anything untoward in their fight. Verstappen, meanwhile, had nothing to lose and tried as much to keep them behind. Both he and Horner don’t think the racing guidelines should interfere as much, as they wish to see more instinctive competition.
Getting past Verstappen –
Piastri: “I mean, to be honest with you, Kimi was very nice to me and didn’t make life very tough, which is nice when you race against people who identify when someone’s quicker and don’t make the race more difficult for both of us. So that was nice of him. Obviously, for Max, leading the race, a different story. But I knew to expect that. I could tell we had a lot of pace. Like I said, it was a matter of just biding my time, waiting for a moment, or forcing him into a moment. That’s what I was able to do. Once I got past, I knew I had to try and build a gap while Lando was behind him.
“That got me the win. Both [racing Max or keeping Lando behind] very different challenges, I would say. On days like today, our two cars were clearly the best in the field by some margin. I know how strong Lando is as a driver, being his teammate now for a couple of years. It’s never easy. But also, racing Max is never easy, as we saw. Both very different challenges. In the long term this season, it’s clearly going to be a strong fight between Lando and I, but both are challenging.”
Norris: “It was good fun. It was enjoyable. I never wanted to let Oscar get too far out of my sights, but I had to put up a good challenge in the first quarter or third of the race trying to get past the Mercedes, trying to get past the Williams, trying to get past Max. So yeah, not an easy start for sure, but I made my way through reasonably quickly I think. And of course, the car was very strong today, so that definitely helps. It was fine. He’s fighting hard, but it’s up to him to do that. He’s ruining his own race. He’s not racing very smart. We probably could have finished 1-2 today, and he didn’t because of that. So yeah, he’s fighting, that is always expected, but that’s what it is.
“In terms of getting Oscar, I gave it a good shot from when I got into second. There was a long way to go, I think 25, 30 laps almost at that point. I probably only stopped pushing the last 4-5 laps. The gap went from almost 10 to four or three, almost. I did all I could. I tried the whole race basically until the very end. I kept belief the whole race, but Oscar’s driving well. He’s quick. To catch from 10 seconds was always pretty much going to be impossible, but I gave it a good shot. I almost got there. Just not enough laps.”
Stella: “With the benefit of hindsight, let’s say that considering the situation in corner one-two, it could have been better for Lando to just lift and make sure that he could keep the second position because the car, again, with the benefit of hindsight, we see that he was very fast and he would certainly have passed Max, like Oscar, and then later Lando was in condition to do. So I think like every situation in racing, you have to approach with the mindset of reviewing where the opportunities lie. And I think in this case, Lando could have been a little bit more patient. I quite like to see Lando aggressive taking the lead of the race and sometimes it is just a matter of a fraction of a second and in this situation, the stewards elected that there was no need to intervene but definitely the maneuver was quite at the limit.
“So, concerning the second overtaking, the lap time or the race time was lost because we needed to give back the position. It was fair to give back the position because in overtaking we exceeded the track limits. There’s few things that we need to improve, certainly there are things to improve even from Oscar side like if you look back at qualifying, I think Oscar lost a little bit of rhythm in qualifying from Q2 to Q3, so even in that case, we have some opportunities. I think good drivers are very open to this kind of review, make adaptations and go again. This is in isolation but this is also to come to your point, with conversations the drivers have with the team of engineers, team principal, their own team support and then you get stronger and stronger event after event.
“Both drivers were approaching the overtaking in a way that had Lando not gone off by a few centimetres in corner 11, he would have completed the overtaking in what was a similar time. So I don’t think we should over-read too much into situations. I think it’s, like I said before, it’s a matter sometimes of a fraction of a second or a fraction of a metre. The big time loss came because of having to give back the position. So I think in terms of overtaking manoeuvre and precision and determination, I don’t see that there’s any difference between both drivers.”
Defending against McLaren pair –
Verstappen: “I mean, honestly, it’s not frustrating at all, you know, we are here to win, and today we were miles off that, so then it doesn’t really matter if you are a P3 or P4. Exactly that [it was good to watch], there’s nothing more to it. I had nothing to lose, so, yeah, I also just wanted to have a bit of fun out there. I mean the last race and then sprint race and today I think it’s quite clear what is allowed and what isn’t allowed, so I think everyone is adjusting to that. For me it’s always better to leave it more natural [than following racing guidelines], but I just follow the rules. In terms of strategy, then I would have dropped back even more [if I elected to wait for rain or VSC], wouldn’t have been a good choice. I pitted earlier like few laps before, my tyres were still okay. They [McLaren] are miles up the road. They are miles ahead of everyone on a track where the thermal degradation is high, they just have a massive advantage. That’s quite clear.”
Horner: “Obviously, well done to McLaren, they were in the league of their own. With the tyres running the temperatures that was there, definitely, they are doing better job than the rest of the teams and had a competitive race. Unfortunately, the VSC cost us a podium potentially, with just the timing of it. Whilst having the pace to close down George, we couldn’t get close enough to get into the DRS. I think we had some issues with the brakes that Max hasn’t been happy with, and I think that might be compounding or contributing to the issue. But I think that the drivers talk about a numbness in the car once things start to overheat. So, plenty to go away and reflect on after this race. But I think McLaren just does a better job of keeping the temps, certainly on this type of circuit at this venue, under control. We knew going into this race, it was going to be very, very hard to beat them. And I was actually surprised that Max was able to hold them back for circa 14 laps or so.
“I thought it was a very brave display. Arguably, that maybe hurt our own race, because you’re fighting hard, your tyres are getting hot. But you’re leading the grand prix, you got go for it, and I thought he did an outstanding job to keep Oscar behind for as long as he did, and then Lando. In terms of racing guidelines, I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like natural racing anymore. It feels like we are becoming…over-regulated in wheel-to-wheel racing because they are racing to different lines and I am not sure whether we just need to…it is becoming quite unnatural, so I don’t know whether we need a little bit reset it because…perhaps if a driver were to discuss that in the next race because it just feels like when you introduce too many regulations, you end up driving to the regs and it becomes a little unnatural.”
Gap to rivals –
Stella: “Yes, I’m a little surprised that the gap we had today is as big as we saw. I thought that we could have had an advantage from tyre management point of view, but I didn’t think tyre management advantage would lead to this level of gap throughout the race. When we made the comments about competitors, we commented on the performance in qualifying and I think myself, I admit it that the car doesn’t perform as well as we want in qualifying and it becomes a little difficult to exploit it at the limit the new tyres in empty fuel tank.
“But clearly in the race, when you put consecutive laps together, and you have a little bit of degradation in hot conditions, then it looks like the car performs very well. I want to go back to saying that the result of some very targeted engineering work. If you had asked me before the season I would say like, yes, we have invested in improving the interaction with the tyres but I wouldn’t have said that the extent would have been the one that we see in this kind of races.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-miami-grand-prix-pole-sitter-verstappen-fends-off-attack-from-norris-who-drops-to-p6-on-the-race-start.1831222251171539835
Here’s Max Verstappen against Oscar Piastri: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-miami-grand-prix-piastri-powers-past-verstappen-to-take-the-lead.1831223628333534553
Here’s Max Verstappen against Lando Norris: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-miami-grand-prix-norris-comes-out-on-top-after-epic-battle-with-verstappen-for-p2.1831226522220877797
Here’s Max Verstappen losing to George Russell: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-miami-grand-prix-russell-emerges-from-the-pits-ahead-of-verstappen-to-take-p3.1831225524696902461
Here’s how F1 Miami GP panned out
