McLaren’s Lando Norris wins Miami Grand Prix for first F1 race win formula 1 news

McLaren’s Lando Norris won the first Formula One race of his career with an unexpected victory over world champion Max Verstappen at the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday. Breathing life into an F1 season that was again in danger of becoming a one-man story, Norris beat Verstappen by more than seven seconds in his 110th race for McLaren, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished third. Verstappen, who started on pole, has won four of the opening five races of the season and leads the world championship standings.

It looked like business as usual with the Dutchman, who had won the previous two Miami races, leading until lap 24 when he pitted and Norris’s McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri took the lead.

The Australian Piastri himself went into the pits after four laps, giving the lead to Norris and the British driver never looked back.

Crucially, Norris was able to pit during a safety car on lap 30, giving him valuable time advantage which he never relinquished.

The safety car came out when Kevin Magnussen clipped Logan Sargent, sending the American Williams driver into the wall, bringing out the yellow flag.

Norris, who had 15 podiums before his first win, took full advantage of the safety car and, struggling to catch Verstappen, took his first win.

It was the first time Verstappen had been beaten on track as he finished the race since Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz won in Singapore last September.

Norris was hoisted into the air by the McLaren mechanics as his long wait for victory in the game came to an end.

“About time huh?” Norris said, “I knew on Friday that we had the momentum…today we managed to put it together. We had the right strategy, it paid off,” he added.

‘he deserves it’

“I think a lot of people doubted me along the way. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my short career, over the last five years, but today we put everything together, so it’s all for the team .

“I stuck with McLaren because I could trust them and I trusted them and today proved exactly that,” he said.

The closest Norris came to winning a Grand Prix was in Sochi, Russia in 2021, when he led in the late stages before failing to make an early tire change due to rain, which cost him dearly.

Verstappen, who had complained about a lack of grip in qualifying and during Sunday’s race, said his Red Bull was unable to keep up with Norris after the McLaren driver switched to harder tyres.

“He just had more speed, Lando was flying. It was incredibly difficult for us, but on bad days at P2, I’ll take it okay?

“I’m very happy for Lando, it’s been a long time and it won’t be his last chance. He definitely deserves it,” the Dutchman said.

Leclerc echoed those sentiments.

The Ferrari driver said, “Often he runs very close to it but for one reason or another he doesn’t make it. But today he did an incredible job and he ran on it all weekend.”

Sainz finished fourth and Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Pérez finished fifth, but the pair swapped places after the stewards fined the Spaniard five seconds post-race for a collision with Piastri. .

Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished sixth and eighth, while RB’s Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda finished seventh.

Like the first two years of the Miami Grand Prix, held around Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, the race attracted a lot of celebrities.

Former France international footballer and coach Zinedine Zidane, singer Ed Sheeran, Super Bowl-winning quarterback Patrick Mahomes and former US President Donald Trump were among those in the running. Trump visited the McLaren garage before the race.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)