Lando Norris with McLaren triumphed in this year's edition of the Miami Grand Prix, the sixth round of the Formula 1 season. After five years and 110 races, the 24-year-old driver finally celebrated victory in the most prestigious motor race in the world.
The success of Norris and McLaren is even sweeter, after three-time world champion Max Verstappen with Red Bull remained in second place on the podium. Verstappen claimed his seventh straight pole position in Saturday night's qualifying, but was unable to hold on to his lead. Key to the development of the race was the appearance of a safety car on the track after Williams' Logan Sargent suffered an accident on the 29th lap. Norris had already overtaken the competition when he decided to enter the pit stop while the others drove slowly behind the safety car. When he re-appeared on track, he continued to lead and then extended it over Verstappen to eventually gloat 7.6s ahead of the runner-up in the final standings.
Charles Leclerc took third place with Ferrari. Sergio Perez (Red Bull), Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), Yuki Tsunoda (Honda), George Russell (Mercedes), Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Esteban Ocon (Alpin) also entered the top 10.
"I'm just proud of what I've achieved. A lot of people doubted me. I made a lot of mistakes in the last five years of my short career, but today we managed to do everything right. This success is for the whole team. I stayed with McLaren because I could believe in them and I believe in them. Today we proved exactly that", commented Norris, and Verstappen showered the winner with compliments. "Once they switched to hard tyres, they just had more speed, and especially Lando, he was just flying. It was incredibly difficult for us in that period, but if second place is a bad day, I have no complaints. I'm very happy for Lando. It's been a long time time coming for him and this won't be his last win, so he definitely deserves it today".
The Dutchman continues to lead the general classification with 136 points, 33 ahead of teammate Perez. Leclerc is third with 98 points, while Norris and Sainz each have 83. The next Formula 1 race is the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix on May 19. /BGNES
