Oscar Piastri remains self-critical despite victory in Miami – where he sees room for improvement and how teammate Lando Norris experienced his comeback
With his victory at the 2025 Miami Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri has already won his fourth race of this Formula 1 season, once again leaving McLaren teammate Lando Norris behind. However, the Australian is quite self-critical when it comes to his second half of the race.
“Maybe the second half of the race wasn’t the strongest of my life,” he says looking back, “but I think building up the lead and being fast at the right moments was what I needed.”
Piastri, who started the race from fourth on the grid, showed early on that he could set the pace at the front, meaning he only had to manage his advantage at the end. After some thrilling battles in the opening laps, he took the lead from world champion Max Verstappen on lap 14.
“I think the first stint was really, really strong,” he analyzed himself. ‘Then, in the stint with the hard tires, I had a few problems, to be honest. That’s why it was good that I was able to build up that lead at the beginning.’
Towards the end, he got the race back under control. “But there are definitely things I need to work on. I’m very happy with the win and the points, but you have to keep learning all the time,” said the Miami winner, who is particularly unhappy with his qualifying performance.
“I don’t think it was my best weekend, and a lot of that was down to Saturday. Today’s race was pretty solid, but yesterday I was pretty frustrated with my performance. In the end, I won, but the chances of winning many races when you qualify fourth are pretty slim.“
”I did a lot of things right today, but there was definitely some luck involved – and a very fast car. I don’t want to rely on that every Sunday.”
Norris fights back to second place
Behind Piastri, his teammate Norris delivered an impressive comeback. After falling back to sixth place following an early incident with Verstappen, he fought his way past Mercedes, Williams, and Verstappen to finish second.
“It was fun. It was entertaining. I never wanted to lose sight of Oscar, but I had to fight my way through the first quarter or third of the race,” the Briton recalled. “It was definitely not an easy start, but I think I worked my way through pretty quickly.”
After his series of overtakes, Norris remained ambitious and stuck to his goal of catching Piastri despite being well behind: “I tried really hard from the moment I was in second place. I think there were still 25 or 30 laps to go.”
“I probably only stopped pushing in the last four or five laps. The gap went from almost ten seconds to three or four, almost. I gave it everything. I tried practically the whole race, right up to the very end. I believed in it the whole race,” says Norris.
“But Oscar drives well. He’s fast,” he praised his teammate. ”Catching up from ten seconds behind was pretty much impossible, but I tried. I was almost there. There just weren’t enough laps.”
With this one-two finish, McLaren not only cemented its current dominance in the 2025 Formula 1 season, but also extended its lead in the constructors’ championship. Piastri leads the drivers’ championship by 16 points ahead of Norris.
