McLaren divided as next F1 driver axing looms - Miami GP winners and losers

Oscar Piastri won his fourth round of the current F1 season at the Miami Grand Prix to extend his advantage over Lando Norris.

The McLaren team-mates comfortably controlled the weekend at the Miami International Autodrome in their MCL39s, despite neither claiming pole - for either the sprint or the main, full-distance race.

Those honours went to Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen, respectively, with the former enjoying somewhat of a coming out weekend in Florida.

So, who has made the RacingNews365 list of winners and losers for the 2025 F1 Miami Grand Prix?

Oscar Piastri - Winner

To win a championship, in almost any sport, sometimes you have to win ugly - and that is exactly what Piastri did in Florida.

The Australian topped practice, and was unlucky not to triumph in the sprint after out-qualifying his McLaren team-mate to start alongside rookie Antonelli.

But he did not bring his best stuff to qualifying for the grand prix, starting a relatively-lowly fourth. However, being able to win the hard way is not only the mark of a champion (in the making), but also how you build title-winning campaigns themselves.

It was not his best weekend, which itself shows the high standard the 24-year-old is currently operating to, and yet he still found a way to increase his lead in the standings over Norris.

He maximised on opportunities as and when they presented themselves in a ruthless, Verstappen-esque fashion - and impressed again when going wheel-to-wheel with the Dutchman.

Lando Norris - Loser

F1 is by no means a zero-sum game, but it is at McLaren this week - and not for the first time this season.

Norris looked much more his usual self at the Miami International Autodrome after a difficult couple of rounds and yet the British driver will head home disappointed.

Having capitalised on a fortuitous safety car (again) in the sprint, the 25-year-old positioned himself well to maximise on Piastri's poor qualifying.

But, it could have - and probably should have - been pole position, and from there, you question whether events would have unfolded for him as they did in the grand prix.

Whilst Norris did ultimately dispatch of Verstappen to claim second, it was less clinical and took longer than his team-mate. In doing so, it cost him any chance of challenging the Australian for victory.

Norris came to the Sunshine State 10 points behind Piastri, had a better weekend than in recent memory whilst the other McLaren driver had a worse one, and leaves with the deficit standing at 16 points.

Kimi Antonelli - Winner

Is Antonelli the second coming of Ayrton Senna? That's a bold claim and one that is far too early to make.

However, the way in which the Italian wove his final sprint qualifying lap together to become the youngest pole-sitter in F1 history - by some margin - undeniably had shades of the Brazilian.

He followed up that lap with another strong effort in grand prix qualifying to out-fox George Russell twice across one lap, the first two times he has done so.

His youth and inexperience shone through during both races, including falling back during the grand prix, but it is perhaps unfair to detract from a driver fighting at the sharp end of F1 for the first time.

He showed naivety in his first corner clash with Piastri in the sprint, but that is not so much a slight as it is an acknowledgement. The positives of the weekend in Florida far outweigh the negatives of the learning curve he is on.

Ferrari - Loser

Ferrari's trip to the Miami International Autodrome was a disaster, and the reason for that is twofold.

Not only was the Italian team unable to compete with its so-called peers of McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull - at least the one of Verstappen - it appears to have found a new sparring partner in the form of Williams.

All weekend long, Carlos Sainz, who was not retained by the Scuderia last year, and Alex Albon had, on balance, the better of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

To compound that misery, the grand prix itself re-exposed some glaring operational weaknesses within the Maranello-based team, ones that were supposed to have been fixed by now under the leadership of Fred Vasseur.

To be blunt, it made a complete hash of not only being decisive with making strategic calls and managing its two drivers through team orders, but also adequately communicating those choices to the British and Monegasque drivers.

Alex Albon - Winner

Albon has now scored 30 points this season, including two top-five finishes from the opening six rounds.

Better yet, that is 23 points more than his new, and highly acclaimed, Williams team-mate. The 28-year-old has already eclipsed the 27 points he scored for the Grove-based team in 2023 - and the season is only at the quarter-distance mark.

Of course, much of that form is down to Williams, but Albon has been an integral part of the rebuild at the nine-time constructors' champion.

Whilst he cost himself fourth in the sprint by getting a penalty and got out-qualified by Sainz for the main grid-setting session, he took no prisoners in the grand prix, passing his team-mate twice - potentially after being told not to - despite nursing an issue.

He brilliantly dummied Antonelli with the switchback into Turn 1 to get past the Mercedes driver for fifth and continues to rise to the challenge of having a representative benchmark of a team-mate.

Jack Doohan - Loser

Reports emerging from the paddock post-race suggest the Miami Grand Prix may well have been the Australian's last in an F1 race seat - at least for now.

So, it is hard to point out the positives of a weekend in which his Alpine death warrant might have been signed.

He out-qualified Pierre Gasly for the first time, but could not hide his frustration at a mix up that left him knocked out of SQ1 the day before.

Admonishing the team for an error he felt was "not acceptable" and a "joke" was pretty punchy for a driver fighting for his job, but in same ways, you have to understand it and maybe even respect it.

There is not much more he could have done to avoid Liam Lawson into the first corner during the grand prix, but that is not much saving grace. Two first lap retirements in six this year does not read well. It is increasingly looking like the end of the road.