'From Double DNS to F1's best? How did McLaren do it?!'

McLaren had a strong performance at the Miami Grand Prix. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri secured a one-two finish in the Sprint on Saturday. Then, on Sunday, both drivers also finished on the podium behind Kimi Antonelli.

It is not the first time McLaren has been able to deliver updates that worked in Miami. The team flexed its muscles in a similar way at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix. For last weekend, the Woking-based team had seven changes ready.

Team boss Andrea Stella also believes that the competitive order has changed for the Grand Prix in Florida. The Italian told GPblog, among others: “I think because of the upgrades that a large number of teams have delivered here in Miami, we have seen some changes to the competitive picture. Definitely we’ve seen McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull closing the gap. Over a single lap, execution is very important. We saw McLaren prevailing in sprint qualifying, but the same car was further back on the grid in qualifying, and I think this has a lot to do with execution, optimisation, and adaptation."

He added: "Mercedes still seems to possess a couple of tenths’ advantage over everyone else. This was most noticeable today in the race and also yesterday. In the first sprint phase of the weekend, for some reason Mercedes didn’t express their full potential, and it looked like others had made bigger-than-expected gains. In reality, it was probably just Mercedes not optimising their performance."