Oscar Piastri is on track to become Australia’s first F1 champion in 45 years if he can continue outwitting and outdriving his rivals on race day.
Despite starting fourth on the grid, the 23-year-old sealed a dominant victory in Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix courtesy of a first-lap slip-up from McLaren teammate Lando Norris, who dropped down to sixth following an audacious skirmish with leader Max Verstappen.
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Piastri, who now boasts more F1 victories than his experienced teammate, became the first Australian to win three consecutive F1 races since Alan Jones achieved the rare feat in 1981.
The Melbourne product, now leading the drivers’ standings, is 16 points ahead of Norris and 32 points adrift of four-time reigning champion Verstappen.
Despite a few disappointing results in qualifying throughout the 2025 season, Piastri’s composure and clinical execution on race day makes him a leading title contender.
After spinning out in slippery conditions during March’s season opener at Albert Park, Piastri has hardly put a foot wrong, while Norris has often shot himself in the foot with costly errors.
Here’s how the F1 media responded to Piastri’s latest triumph.
“Norris, seemingly imperious in the opening round, has stumbled over every obstacle he has had to traverse,” Stuart Codling penned for Motorsport.com.
“Piastri is now 16 points ahead of Norris in the drivers’ championship. Narrow margins, but he is palpably the happier of the two McLaren drivers at the moment.
“And as he himself pointed out, as the margins in championships ebb and flow, it’s all about maximising what’s on the table at each round.”
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CODE Sports’ Julian Linden wrote that Piastri had “provided another reminder of his unfailing maturity as he outdrove and outwitted his older and more experienced rivals to win the Miami Grand Prix”.
“In a performance worthy of the world champion he’s tipped to soon become, Piastri made all the right moves in the cockpit of his McLaren to cruise to the sixth victory of his rapidly blossoming career,” Linden wrote.
“Plenty of others are already raving about him because he’s shown again that he’s made of the right stuff, not only lightning fast behind the wheel but also cool as you like under pressure.
“Piastri drove a much smarter race, waiting patiently for his opportunities to come then taking them.
“A hard taskmaster, Piastri’s determination to always do better is one of the things that sets him apart.
“Time will tell if Piastri remains too quick for Norris to catch because right now, everything still points to this being a year-long battle where the margin between the pair will remain razor thin.”
Elsewhere, Planet F1’s Sam Cooper claimed the only one that can stop Piastri from winning a maiden F1 title is Piastri himself.
“A hattrick of successes may well be looked back as Piastri’s knockout blow to Lando Norris,” Cooper penned.
“Every season Piastri has improved but this year he looks very close to the finished article.
“His battle with Verstappen (in Miami) was one of high skill with both drivers fighting desperately to stay ahead, but ultimately it was Piastri who triumphed in a move that would not have seemed out of place had Verstappen himself pulled it off.
“The Australian’s lead at the top is 16 points with a quarter of the year gone and it is hard to see how anyone but himself will knock him off his perch.”
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Speaking on The Race’s F1 Podcastanalysts Edd Straw and Scott Mitchell-Malm compared how Piastri and Norris went about getting past Verstappen in Miami, agreeing the Australian had “slightly more racing nous about him”.
“I thought Piastri calculated it well,” Straw said.
“It’s subtle differences … Piastri wasn’t trying to full on make the move in Turn 1. He was kind of working on Verstappen.
“Whereas I feel Norris felt like he could try to go around the outside, certainly the first time he tried to do it.
“You ended up with a similar outcome in the end, but I just thought Piastri had that little five per cent slightly more racing nous about him when he did it.”
In response, Mitchell-Malm described Norris’ overtake attempt as an “all or nothing move”.
“If it didn’t come off, it was failing,” Mitchell-Malm said.
“Piastri never overcommitted on the outside … it was almost like Piastri was goading Verstappen into the stay-ahead-at-all-costs (mentality) into Turn 1, and then run wide and cut back underneath.
“Whereas Norris was so much on the element of staying all the way around the outside that he didn’t have that flexibility.
“Piastri gave himself more options, raced a little bit more cleverly.”
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Following the Miami Grand Prix, Piastri accused Verstappen of ruining his Miami GP chances by not racing smartly. However, The Telegraph’s Gray Anderson saw things differently.
“If anything, Norris was the one who ruined his own race through not driving smartly,” Anderson argued.
“Norris needs to look at Piastri and learn from him in and outside of the car. We all know Norris wears his heart on his sleeve and is self-critical to a fault. Norris should look at the calmness his Australian teammate has and try to be more like him.
“Of course, they are two different personalities and a driver cannot completely change how he is, but not giving so much away emotionally to your rivals in public would not be a bad thing. Being more patient and calculated in the cockpit would be a plus too, especially if Norris wants to end Piastri’s winning streak.”
The F1 season resumes with the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola on Sunday, May 18.