McLaren driver, Oscar Piastri, did “a lot of things right”, climbing to a race win at the Miami GP. The Australian was able to get the lead at Lap 14 after a long fought battle for the lead against Max Verstappen ran wide at Turn 1. With clean air, the 24-year-old held the lead to the checkered flag.
A fight for clean air
During the Post-Race Press Conference, Piastri was asked if enjoyed himself after fighting through the field to get clean air. The Australian answered, “I enjoyed it at certain points, yes. It was tough at the beginning trying to get past Max. I tried pretty hard to get past, with everything still on my car. It was not easy, but I picked my moments when I needed to.”
The 24-year-old driver knew that he had “a lot of pace from the get-go” and was able to that as well as the clean air to maintain his lead.
“I could tell that we had a lot of pace from the get-go today, and it was going to be a matter of when I got past, not if,” Piastri noted. “But I wanted to do it as efficiently as I could because I knew once Lando got back behind me, he swas going to be catching us a lot. I wanted to get through quickly but cleanly. I felt like I did a pretty good job of that, then built a gap. Maybe not the strongest second half of the race of my life, but I think building that gap and being quick at the right times was what I needed.”
Drivers understanding who their fight was with
Before Piastri could take on the then race leader, Verstappen, he had to get past Kimi Antonelli. The 18-year-old Mercedes Driver found himself in P2 before the first Virtual Safety Car, but knew the McLaren of Piastri was not his to fight.
“I mean, to be honest with you, Kimi was very nice to me and didn’t make life very tough,” The Australian noted, “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.”
Piastri knew it was a matter of time before he could overtake Verstappen. The Dutchman was Piastri’s main race rival for the Miami GP. With the wicked pace of his McLaren, Piastri overtook Verstappen, and was able to build a gap ahead of the Dutchman.
“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.”
Celebrations after a mixed race weekend
After the checkered flag flew, Piastri and Lando Norris created an over 30-second gap with the first non-McLaren. When asked how he was going to reflect on this moment, Piastri answered with, “Celebrations – that’s definitely top of the list at the moment!”
However, with finishing second in the Sprint Race, Piastri sill had “things to work on.” The Australian also noted the importance of not relying on pace he had at the Miami GP for every race.
“I think this weekend was not my best, and a lot of that was yesterday. The race today was pretty solid, but yesterday I was pretty frustrated with my performance. Ultimately, yes, I won the race this weekend, but I think the likelihood of winning many races [after] qualifying fourth is pretty low. I did a lot of things right today, but there was definitely some good fortune there as well, and a very quick car. I don’t want to rely on that every single Sunday. Clearly, this is the exception to the pace we’ve had this year. Yes, we’ve always had a strong car, but the pace we had today from lap one it felt like was unexpected, even for us. I’ll definitely take the performance and we’ll try and work out how to do that every weekend, but there’s still definitely things to work on from a personal side and from a team point of view.”
Using the pace when it’s strong
The pace of McLaren’s MCL39, Piastri knew what points of the track benefited or hindered his car at the Miami GP. When asked about the strongest points for the McLaren, the Australian answered, “Honestly, I don’t know. In qualifying we were not the quickest in the high-speed corners. I think generally in the low-speed corners is where we seemed quite good this weekend. In the race, all the corners become even slower, and looking after the tyres becomes more important. That’s probably been a strength of ours so far this year. This has been the first very hot race we’ve had in terms of track temperature. Saudi was hot, but the track temperature today was the highest we’ve had all year. I think that helped our pace.”
