Hamilton hit with late penalty as Verstappen cruises to Miami sprint win

Max Verstappen earned a comfortable victory in the Miami Grand Prix, further extending his championship lead over Sergio Perez.

From pole position, Verstappen enjoyed a relatively trouble-free race, gapping the chasing Charles Leclerc at about two seconds for the 19 lap race to secure the win in F1's first sprint in Miami.

Perez grabbed third with Daniel Ricciardo fourth for RB, as the main body of action centred around Lewis Hamilton's fight for eighth with Kevin Magnussen.

At lights out, Verstappen held the advantage from Leclerc on a used set of medium tyres compared to the new set on the Ferrari, as Ricciardo managed to climb into third ahead of Perez who ran wide.

But further back, Hamilton went deep on the inside at Turn 1, hitting Fernando Alonso into his Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll, who then in turn hit McLaren's Lando Norris, putting the latter two drivers out of the race, triggering a safety car.

As the field came through the pits, as Norris was citied for allegedly crossing the track without permission, with the stewards investigating.

On the restart, both Verstappen and Leclerc bolted, as Perez quickly cleared Ricciardo in the RB, who then put in a defensive masterclass to defned against Carlos Sainz in the sister Ferrari for fourth place.

Ricciardo just held on to take the place, his first points of the season, as Oscar Piastri took sixth for McLaren ahead of Nico Hulkenberg who picked up two points for Haas.

Hamilton vs Magnussen

The main action in the sprint centered around the battle for eighth place between Magnussen and Hamilton.

Struggling with top-speed in the Mercedes, Hamilton could not get past the Haas, with the braking zone at the end of Turn 11 his best opportunity to do so.

On Lap 11, the the Dane ran both drivers wide, allowing Yuki Tsunoda to sneak through to run in eighth as Magnussen earned a pair of 10 second time penalties for cutting the chicane and also running off track to gain an advantage.

Both Tsunoda and Hamilton eventually cleared Magnussen, with the Briton claiming the final point in eighth with a final lap move on the RB driver.

But post-race, he was handed a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit-lane, costing him the point and handing it to Tsunoda.

Magnussen took tenth on the road but will drop to 18th in the final results, with Pierre Gasly, Logan Sargeant, Zhou Guanyu, George Russell, Alex Albon, Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso the other finishers.

Ocon receiving a 10-second penalty before the race for a pitlane collision with Leclerc that called for a new front-wing.