Teenager’s hat-trick win at Miami Grand Prix

Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) drove another magnificent race to win the Miami Grand Prix, and make it three races in a row recently.

Lando Norris (McLaren) was just three seconds behind at the end of the hour and a half race, with teammate Oscar Piastri third.

The top eight mix of finishers comprised two Mercedes, two McLarens, two Ferraris, a Red Bull and an Alpine.

It indicates the closeness of the four leading teams in F1 at present.

In the Sprint Race held the day before, the McLarens of Norris and Piastri were followed by Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), George Russell (Mercedes), Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Antonelli.

The start of the main race, which had Antonelli in pole position and Verstappen second, was dramatic.

The Dutchman was determined to take the lead – and he did briefly – but in an ensuing argy-bargy, his vehicle spun 180 degrees. He managed to recover to a forward point position and only lost a couple of places.

The entire field had started on hard tyres, so barring incidents, they should have made only one stop.

More was to come after the early start, which had been brought forward by three hours to avoid an approaching storm.

After the exciting start Antonelli eventually made it to the front and maintained the lead to the end.

There was a lot of action behind him!

Norris and Piastri settled into second and third places respectively, with Norris keeping the pressure on Antonelli.

Russell had a difficult but good race chasing Verstappen, who he eventually passed to take fourth place after Verstappen’s tyres went off.

Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton had good but difficult races in their Prancing Horses and LeClerc who had been running near the top was penalized down to eighth place.

Hamilton took sixth place behind Verstappen.

Franco Colapinto, with truck loads of fans from South America, split the two Ferraris by taking seventh position in his Alpine.

The Williams duo of Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon had a much better race, finishing in ninth and tenth place.

Another bit of good news is that Fernando Alonso finished in 15th place only a lap behind the leaders.

Honda are very busy trying to sort out the vibration problem of their otherwise very good V6 engine.

The season is in its infancy while the cars are still being sorted out.

The sudden power delivery of the electrical component of the engines is still a problem.

In some ways its back to the early days when it was easy to spin a motorcar; both Leclerc and Verstappen spun off in this race.

I think that racing has been made more exciting due to the close competition and I hope we can see a long term fight for the championship.

The next race is at circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal on May 24.

We will meet again in Canada in three weeks’ time.

DRIVERS
Kimi Antonelli 100
George Russell 80
Charles Leclerc 63
Lando Norris 51
Lewis Hamilton 49
Oscar Piastri 43
Max Verstappen 26
Oliver Bearman 17
Pierre Gasly 16
Liam Lawson 10

CONSTRUCTORS
Mercedes 180
Ferrari 112
McLaren 94
Red Bull 30
Alpine 21

HAVE YOUR SAY

Like the South Coast Fever’s Facebook page