Andrea Stella ‘surprised’ by McLaren advantage after 1-2 in Miami as he hails particular area of engineering 'excellence'

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella was left smiling at the end of a dominant performance by his team, with Oscar Piastri winning the Miami Grand Prix from Lando Norris.

With the team having already bagged a 1-2 in Saturday's Sprint, with Norris the one to come out on top, the pace the papaya squad displayed in the Grand Prix itself had the paddock talking.

Piastri and Norris finished relatively close together with 4.6 seconds between the two team mates, but third-placed George Russell was over 33 seconds behind Norris, while Max Verstappen’s Red Bull – that had started on pole – was nearly 40 seconds adrift at the flag.

That gap was by far the most dominant performance of the season from any team, and was gained after both Piastri and Norris had to climb back through the field in the early stages.

2025 Miami Grand Prix: Piastri powers past Verstappen to take the lead

“I'm a little surprised that the gap we had today is as big as we saw,” Stella said after Sunday's Grand Prix. “I thought that we could have had an advantage from a tyre management point of view but I didn't think that the tyre management would lead to this level of gap throughout the race.

“One of the matters that still in Formula 1 looks like it's a little bit of a black art, which is dealing with tyres. I would say especially when it's hot there's another characteristic which I think works very well with our car, which is the cooling system.

“I think when it's hot our car, you can see that is relatively closed from a bodywork point of view because there's been also great engineering going into the cooling system. So, I think in these conditions we see the excellence of the engineering at McLaren has reached a point where it can make a difference to this kind of extent.”

During the early stages of the Miami Grand Prix eventual winner Piastri had to overtake Kimi Antonelli – which he did with relative ease – and Max Verstappen to climb into the lead. Verstappen made him work for the position, but Piastri did find a way through.

Norris had to pass even more cars to get to second after dropping to sixth on the opening lap, with the Briton's bold attempt to get past polesitter Verstappen at the start failing to give him the reward he was after.

The 25-year-old conceded post race that he "paid the price" for the move and, with the benefit of hindsight, McLaren's electric pace could have allowed him to lift at that moment and fight back later from a higher position.

MIAMI, FLORIDA - MAY 04: Race winner Oscar Piastri of Australia and McLaren and the McLaren team — McLaren recorded a 1-2 in both the Sprint and the Grand Prix

On that moment, Stella explained: “Let's say that considering the situation [on Lap 1], it could have been better for Lando to just lift and make sure that he could keep the second position because the car, again with the benefit of hindsight, we see was very fast and he would certainly have passed Max like Oscar and, later Lando, was in the position to do.

“So, I think like every situation in racing, you have to approach with the mindset of reviewing where the opportunities lie, and I think in this case Lando could have been a little bit more patient.

HIGHLIGHTS: Piastri leads McLaren 1-2 after thrilling race in Miami

"But I quite like to see Lando aggressive, going for overtaking the lead of the race and sometimes it's just the matter of a fraction of a second. In this situation the stewards elected that there was no need to intervene but definitely the manoeuvre was quite at the limit.”

As for the moves later in the race, with Verstappen forcing both Piastri and then Norris to try and go around his outside into Turn 1, Stella did admit that Norris lost time in his fight – while Piastri made it past the Dutchman cleanly, Norris needed several goes and even had to give the place back at one point after overtaking off the track.

2025 Miami Grand Prix: Norris comes out on top after epic battle with Verstappen for P2

This was the crucial period of the race where Piastri in free air was able to disappear up the road – leaving Norris too much to do once he did get into second place.

“Concerning the second overtake, the lap time or race time was lost because he needed to give back the position,” elaborated Stella. "It was fair to give back the position because when overtaking we exceeded the track limits so there's a few things that we need to improve.

“Certainly there are things to improve even from Oscar's side, like if you look back at qualifying I think Oscar lost a little bit of rhythm from Q2 to Q3 so even in that case we have some opportunities. I think both drivers are very open to this kind of review, adapt, make adaptations and go again.”

FACTS AND STATS: Piastri secures McLaren’s first victory hat trick in over 25 years