Miami Grand Prix
Venue: Miami Worldwide Autodrome Dates: 2-4 Might Race begin: 21:00 BST on Sunday
Protection: Dwell commentary of qualifying on-line; race on BBC Radio 5 Dwell from 20:00 BST and dwell textual content updates on BBC Sport web site and app
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Lando Norris beat McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri to win a chaotic wet-dry Miami Grand Prix dash race with assist from the protection automotive.
Piastri led from lap one after passing pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes on the first nook of the race however the security automotive price the Australian the race win.
The championship chief pitted one lap earlier than Norris because the observe dried out however the security automotive was despatched out whereas Norris was pitting for his slick tyres.
That slows the automobiles on observe and gave Norris sufficient time to rejoin within the lead.
The security automotive was brought on by a crash between Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin and Liam Lawson’s Racing Bull at Flip Two however that was not the one drama within the race.
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Max Verstappen completed fourth on the street behind Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, who benefited from an early pit cease for dry-weather slick tyres, however was penalised 10 seconds for an unsafe launch from his pit cease, which brought about him to collide with Antonelli.
Verstappen, whose entrance wing was broken within the collision, was demoted to seventeenth and final by the penalty.
The incident was a significant blow to Antonelli’s hopes of a great consequence. It prevented him making his pit cease and he needed to rejoin the observe and do one other lap earlier than pitting once more. Antonelli ended up ending out of the factors in ninth.
The race began on a moist observe, after a 28-minute delay due to the poor situations.
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Piastri made a greater launch than Antonelli, and was alongside the Mercedes on the strategy to the primary nook, the place already gained.
Antonelli claimed Piastri had pushed him off, however in actual fact ran vast off observe on his personal as Piastri assumed the lead forward of Norris, Verstappen, and the rejoining Mercedes.
Piastri pulled out a four-second lead within the the primary few laps however because the observe dried Norris started to return again at him and the McLarens had been working nostril to tail when Piastri pitted for slick tyres on lap 13 of 18.
He was gaining on Norris and set to renew the lead till the accident between Alonso and Lawson, which will probably be investigated by stewards after the race.
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Briton Norris resumed with a two-second lead and, because the race completed beneath the protection automotive, the win was secured.
It was nearly carbon-copy of Norris’ maiden win within the grand prix right here final 12 months, when a security automotive vaulted him into the lead forward of Verstappen.
“My luck in Miami appears fairly good on the minute,” Norris mentioned, “however the tempo was already fairly good. You by no means know when to pit, go early or late and look ahead to security automotive. It has labored two years in a row. I’d in all probability choose it occurred tomorrow (within the grand prix) moderately than in the present day however I am glad.”
The win narrows the hole between him and Piastri within the drivers’ championship by a single level to 9.
Particles falls off Max Verstappen’s Pink Bull within the pit lane after he collided with Kimi Antonelli [EPA]
Piastri mentioned: “I really feel like I did fairly the whole lot proper, so a bit disillusioned to return out in second however that is the way it goes generally. Racing is a troublesome enterprise. Needed to get my elbows out on the first nook, proud of what I did.”
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Hamilton had struggled for tempo on the moist tyres however he pitted for his slicks on lap 11, making the choice himself, and it vaulted him up the order from sixth within the opening laps to 3rd on the finish, passing the broken Pink Bull of Verstappen on observe.
“I am so proud of that,” he mentioned. “It has been a troublesome 12 months up to now however I by no means thought it might rain in Miami, it is the primary time we have all been on observe within the moist right here and what a race it offered us.
“I made that decision in the long run. As a result of I used to be going nowhere.”
The madcap occasions of the pit-stop interval, security automotive and Verstappen’s penalty helped Williams’ Alex Albon, seventh within the early laps, vault to fourth within the outcomes, forward of George Russell’s Mercedes.
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Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin took sixth forward of Lawson. Haas’ Oliver Bearman drove a superb race to complete eighth from nineteenth on the grid however was given a five-second penalty for an unsafe launch within the pits, which means Pink Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda took the ultimate level.
The drama started earlier than the beginning when Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc hit the wall within the moist situations on the best way to the grid, damaging the automotive and forcing him out of the race.
On the official race begin time, the automobiles accomplished two laps behind the protection automotive to guage the situations, earlier than it was determined that visibility was too poor to proceed.
The close to half-hour break allowed the observe to dry sufficiently for it to grow to be raceable.
It was the primary time on this race’s four-year historical past that rain had affected the working.
Charles Leclerc walks away from his broken Ferrari [Getty Images]
