Oscar Piastri 'aware' of Max Verstappen tactics in Miami battle

Oscar Piastri has stated he was prepared for Max Verstappen's “argy-bargy” racing tactics during their duel for victory in Miami.

Piastri started the race from third on the grid but moved into second when team-mate Lando Norris ran off track at the opening corner in battle with Max Verstappen.

The Australian soon engaged in his own fight with Verstappen as they duelled for the lead in the early stages.

On lap 14, Verstappen looked to run deep into the opening corner to protect his position as Piastri attacked, but locked up and ran wide - gifting Piastri the lead en route to the victory.

Having missed out on the sprint race win on Saturday, Piastri was elated to triumph in the main event.

“I won the race that I really wanted to,” Piastri said. [Saturday] was a tricky day. 

“The sprint was what it was, but qualifying was probably one of my trickiest sessions of the year. 

“To come away with a win on Sunday is an impressive result.

“There's was a bit of agry-bargy at Turn 1 which helped me out a little bit.

“I was aware enough to avoid Max coming through in Turn 1. From that point onwards, I knew we had a good pace advantage and clearly the car was unbelievable today.”

Piastri built up a lead of several seconds over Norris before the latter managed to close the gap in the final laps, leaving the championship leader to acknowledge he has work to do to iron out certain creases. 

“The first stint was really strong, and then the hard stint, I was honestly struggling a little bit,” he said.

“It was a good thing that I built that gap in the first stint. Towards the end, I started to get things a bit more back under control.

“But there's still definitely some things to work on from this afternoon.”