McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of Australia celebrates on the podium after winning the Formula One Miami Grand Prix auto race Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Miami Gardens. Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

After drivers had time to catch their breath and teams had time to fix their cars, qualifying for the main race took place in Miami on Saturday afternoon. The rains from earlier in the day were long gone, the track was dried out, and the action revved up quickly as all twenty cars went out to compete in the first session of qualifying.

The drama of sprint qualifying was similarly left behind as all the drivers set times for at least two competitive laps. In the end, the difference between the first place driver and the sixteenth driver (the first one eliminated) was just 0.603 seconds. Things were indeed heating up in Miami.

Impressing everyone once again, Max Verstappen was able to secure pole for Sunday’s race in his Red Bull. Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who wowed the fans with a pole for the sprint race, was able to get third on the grid. The two McLarens did well with Lando Norris slotting in second, and Oscar Piastri in fourth. George Russell brought his Mercedes across the line in fifth for the race, continuing his massively impressive streak of finishing in the top five for every race and qualifying session so far this year.

As the race started, Norris challenged Verstappen heading into the first corner once again, something that has never gone all that well for Norris. He was once again left wanting as he wasn’t able to make the corner and went wide, relegating himself back to sixth position with the error. His efforts to blame Verstappen this time didn’t go anywhere as the Red Bull’s defense was completely legal this time.

Antonelli was able to get up to second and Piastri followed into third place after Norris’ off-track experience. Piastri quickly found a way past Antonelli and hunted down Verstappen. The two had an exciting back-and-forth for several laps. Though Verstappen gets criticized for his aggressive defense, he did it brilliantly in Miami, completely legal and very impressive. It was obvious Piastri was quicker in his McLaren, but he needed to get by first.

While those two dueled, Lando Norris was atoning for his earlier mistake, managing to pass several cars to get back into third place, closing the gap to the leaders. Piastri made a brilliant move when Verstappen locked up his front tires and swept by for the lead.

Norris closed up on Verstappen, but had even more trouble than Piastri did. Continuing to put his nose in ill-advised places, Norris was much closer to causing an accident than his teammate as he tried to clear the Red Bull. When Norris finally did make it by Verstappen, he did so off track and yielded the position back to Verstappen once more.

After letting Verstappen through again, Norris fell back a bit and regrouped. Approaching Verstappen more thoughtfully, he was able to pass by the Red Bull using his DRS and eventually made it look easy. At this point, the damage was done though as Piastri was able to get up to a ten second lead over Norris.

This race could’ve been summarized by saying the two McLaren’s finished 1-2 and collectively had a thirty second lead on the other cars. While true, that synopsis undersells the amazing on track action throughout the field. Even though this summary focused on the leaders, there were excellent duels from first to last place marking one of most interesting and pass filled Miami races in its four year history.

Another dominant performance from McLaren saw the team extend their lead in the Constructor’s Championship to 246 over second place Mercedes at 141 and Red Bull Racing with 105. Ferrari struggled mightily in this race and ended up with a bickering pair of drivers who finished in seventh and eighth place. The team can take small solace in only being eleven points behind Red Bull with 94.

Piastri has now won four of the first six races and has 131 points, extending the lead over his teammate to 16 points. Norris is similarly 16 points ahead of Verstappen who finds himself at 99 points for the season. George Russell’s consistency has kept him in championship consideration, only six points further back with a total of 93. Ferrari will have to find something special if they want either Charles Leclerc (53) or Lewis Hamilton (41) to be serious contenders.

F1 has another week off before starting a triple header as they start their European calendar. First up in the trio is in Italy during the weekend of May 16-18. The Sunday race starts at 9 a.m. Eastern time.