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McLaren’s Lando Norris won the first Formula 1 race of his career with a shock victory over world champion Max Verstappen at the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday.
Breathing life into an F1 season that was in danger of becoming a one-man story again, Norris, in his 110th race for McLaren, beat Verstappen by more than seven seconds, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished third.
Verstappen, who started on pole, has won four of the first five races of the season and leads the world championship standings.
It was business as usual with the Dutchman, who had won the previous two races at Miami, leading until lap 24 when he pitted and Norris’ McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri took the lead.
Australian Piastri himself pitted four laps later, allowing Norris to take the lead and the British driver never looked back.
Crucially, Norris was able to stop during a safety car on lap 30, giving him a valuable time advantage that he never relinquished.
The safety car intervened after Kevin Magnussen hit Logan Sargeant, sending the American Williams driver into the wall, bringing a yellow flag.
Norris, who had 15 podiums before his first victory, took full advantage of the safety car and, with Verstappen struggling to catch up, he took his first victory.
It was the first time Verstappen had been beaten on track, at the end of the race, since Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz won in Singapore in September last year.
Norris was hoisted into the air by McLaren mechanics as his long wait for a victory in the sport came to an end.
“About time, huh?” Said Norris, “I knew Friday we had the pace…today we put it together.” We had the perfect strategy, everything paid off,” he added.
‘He deserves it’
“I guess a lot of people doubted me along the way. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last five years, my short career, but today we put it all together, so it’s all for the team.
“I stayed with McLaren because I could believe in them and I believed in them and that’s exactly what I proved today,” he added.
The closest Norris came to winning a Grand Prix was in Sochi, Russia, in 2021, when he led in the closing stages before failing to change tires early in the rain, causing him it’s expensive.
Verstappen, who complained about a lack of grip in qualifying and Sunday’s race, said his Red Bull had been unable to keep up with Norris once the McLaren driver switched to hard tires .
“They just had more rhythm, Lando was flying. It was incredibly difficult for us, but on bad P2 days, I take it, right?
“I’m very happy for Lando, it’s been a long time and it won’t be his last. He really deserves it,” said the Dutchman.
Leclerc echoed these sentiments.
“Very often he would run very close to the goal, but for one reason or another he wouldn’t make it. But today he did an incredible job and he worked on it all weekend,” said the Ferrari driver.
Sainz finished fourth with Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez in fifth, but the pair swapped places after stewards imposed a five-second post-race penalty on the Spaniard for his collision with Piastri.
Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished sixth and eighth while RB’s Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda finished seventh.
As in the first two years of the Miami Grand Prix, held around Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, the race attracted many celebrities.
Former French international footballer and coach Zinedine Zidane, singer Ed Sheeran, Super Bowl-winning quarterback Patrick Mahomes and former US President Donald Trump were among those seen at the race. Trump visited the McLaren garage before the race.
