5 Things We Learned From The Miami Grand Prix

Formula 1 fans enjoyed a Sprint race weekend in Miami GP that saw McLaren driver Lando Norris score his first victory in the sport. 

The 24-year-old started fifth and took advantage of a Safety Car period that saw him leapfrog McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. 

Triple world champion Max Verstappen finished second, seven and a half seconds adrift of the papaya car and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc secured third position in Miami. 

The Red Bull driver had won the Sprint race on Saturday in the Sunshine State ahead of Leclerc and Sergio Perez. But the weekend belonged to Norris, who celebrated McLaren’s first GP win since 2021. 

Here are five things five things we learned from Sunday’s Miami GP: 

5 Kevin Magnussen’s terrible weekend – The Dane had a weekend to forget in Miami as he was handed three penalty points for leaving the track while tussling with Lewis Hamilton in the Sprint. Things didn’t get much better in the GP as he crashed into Williams’ Logan Sargeant and was handed two penalty points and a 10-second time penalty. He was given a drive-through penalty late on in the race and finished in 19th. 

4 Oscar Piastri failed to score points for the first time this season. The Australian was superb on the opening lap as he made up a few places to run in P3. However, he was caught out during the Safety Car period and then a squabble with Carlos Sainz caused damage to the front wing of the MCL38. That caused him to drop down out of the points-scoring places into P13. Piastri was disappointed after the race and said: ”The car felt the best it’s been all year, so I don’t think my result should take away from the performance by the rest of the team.”

3 Esteban Ocon scored Alpine’s first point of 2024. The Enstone-based team headed into Miami with an updated car. Ocon managed to bring the car home in 10th place ahead of Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg. It has been a difficult period for the French team with high-level personnel changes in recent weeks. 

2 Max Verstappen isn’t invincible. The triple world champion might’ve been all smiles as he congratulated Norris, but the Dutch driver moaned about struggling with oversteer and understeer. He wasn’t comfortable with the car on the hard compound tyres and it didn’t feel much better in the second stint on the mediums. Verstappen said the McLarens were quick in the GP, ”once they then switched on to the Hard tyre, they just had more pace. And especially Lando, he was flying.”

1 Norris’ first win is long overdue. The 24-year-old should have won in Sochi a few years ago for McLaren but he said it was worth the wait. He is the 21st British driver to win a race according to F1.com and finally has removed the ‘monkey off his back’. Norris came into Miami with a heavily updated car and it showed good pace across the weekend. He left Verstappen behind as he took advantage of a Safety Car on lap 29 and never looked back. 

Sean Parker

Sean Parker is a motorsport journalist and sports content creator at The South African. He has worked for the country's premier motoring publications, and is a Formula 1 contributor to Bet.co.za, the Bet Central podcast, and Vision View Sports radio.