Miami Grand Prix talking points: Piastri power continues as Hamilton cracks get bigger

Another race into the 2025 Formula One season and it’s another race that sees Australian F1 fans happy.

Oscar Piastri delivered another win, McLaren continue to dominate and one of their favourite sons continues to struggle in a different coloured car.

It’s all here to unpack in the latest F1 Talking Points.

Piastri is unstoppable

Another race, another Oscar Piastri victory.

His third race in a row is the first time since Alan Jones in 1980-81 that an Australian has won three consecutive races in a row. It’s also the first time since a McLaren driver has achieved that feat since Mika Hakkinen in 1997-98.

Dominance is the word you’re looking for however you look at it.

Even after it seems Lando Norris had gotten the better of him through qualifying, and also through luck in the sprint race, Oscar was able to keep his composure and level head he is fast becoming famous for to steer himself towards the win and maintain his lead in the Drivers’ Championship.

Given the dominance of the McLaren at the moment and the momentum Oscar is having, can anyone stop him right now? It’s hard to see that, at least in the foreseeable future.

As I keep saying in this column, we might be seeing the biggest motorsport based party this country has seen in 45 years this December.

Back to school for drivers over turn 1 racing

If you include the sprint race on the weekend, we’ve had three consecutive races now in which drivers have complained about being shoved off at turn one at the start of the race.

From the Piastri vs Max Verstappen incident in Saudi Arabia, to the Piastri vs Antonelli incident in the sprint in Miami, and then the Verstappen vs Norris incident in the main race on Sunday, all seems to be quite familiar right now when something happens and another driver isn’t happy about it.

What most drivers seem to have forgotten, is that turn one of lap one is generally when the elbows are out the furthest. That is when the argy bargy is really going to happen. And that, for the most part, is where most situations are forgiven given that nature of racing.

Yes, in some moments such as Saudi Arabia a driver is rightfully punished for their move. But in situations like we saw in both races in Miami, there is nothing more to it than hard, fair turn one racing.

A question can be asked, sure, but does a penalty need to be given every single time you are forced to go off because the other driver clearly has the corner because they happened to get their first? No.

Maybe a quick refresher for some on this would be handy moving forward.

Hamilton cracks continue as decisions need to be made

Perhaps the biggest talking point from the weekend came in the form of Lewis Hamilton’s radio squabble with his Ferrari team.

Angry that he was being held up by teammate Charles Leclerc in the latter parts of the race, the seven-time champ became increasingly frustrated at his team for not letting him through, eventually succeeding in getting the message across and getting his chance to attack those ahead of him.

That pace though wasn’t there, and he eventually swapped back with Leclerc, with both Ferraris ultimately struggling to even match it with the Williams pair across the race.

What is glaring about this though is it continues to showcase that Hamilton is perhaps not quite the driver he once was.

Not to take away from Ferrari strategy, which as we know at the best of times is questionable. But the fact that Hamilton is getting so frustrated and angry while battling for the lower end of the points shows just where he really is at in his career.

Long since joining Ferrari, these cracks were emerging at Mercedes. In fact, have we genuinely seen the true Hamilton since that infamous Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2021?

A few drives aside, he has been struggling for some time now, a sign that perhaps the writing may be on the wall sooner rather than later for his stellar career.

It pains me to say that, as I’m a Hamilton fan. But it also does need to get to a point where maybe it’s better to go out on your own terms and sense time is running out, rather than continuing to get frustrated and despondent enough that the more you move forward, the worse it seems to get.

The pointless four

A quarter of the way through the season and four drivers are yet to score points: Gabriel Bortoleto, Liam Lawson, Jack Doohan and Fernando Alonso.

This isn’t unusual in F1 that there are some drivers who haven’t scored, particularly when it’s still so early in the season.

But given the parity of the cars, particularly in the lower levels, it may be somewhat of a surprise that for the most part these drivers are yet to score.

Particularly one: Fernando Alonso.

Driving for a team in which the other seat is always criticised for every amount of performance brought from him, there seems to be very little pressure being put on Alonso given his pointless start.

It is the Spaniards worst start to a season since 2017, and only the third time he has ever gone pointless in the opening six rounds of a season, alongside that 2017 season and his very first season for Minardi in 2001.

To put it into context, in 2024 he scored at every race in the opening six rounds, and his teammate Lance Stroll has scored in three of the six weekends so far this season.

No matter which way you look at it, something needs to happen and happen fast for Fernando.

The others are all in the rookie basket and have had varying degrees of issues at the start, but for both Doohan and Lawson it is most concerning.

We all know the issues with Lawson and the drama he has faced this season so far, but given Yuki Tsunoda is now racking up points for Red Bull and Isack Hadjar is doing so for Racing Bulls, there are still some worrying signs there for the Kiwi.

And for Doohan, well those endless rumours about him being replaced by Franco Colapinto are not going away, and if reports are to be believed from Miami, we may have just seen his last ever race in F1.

Let’s hope for our four scoreless drivers that things can change and change fast.

(Photo by Getty Images)

Do we want Miami until 2041?

A quick note once again on the future of the race we just saw.

Over the weekend it was announced the Miami Grand Prix contract had been extended to 2041. That’s almost unheard of in F1 that a contract gets extended that long.

But as I asked a few weeks back in Saudi Arabia on a similar note: do we really need the Miami Grand Prix?

It was fun at first, but it has turned into a bit of a white elephant on many levels. It’s overly hyped but never lives up to it, is overpriced for fans and the racing is never really spectacular.

By far it is superseded by the other two races in the US, and my biggest question is surely if we are to have three races in the country can we maybe rotate one of the slots? Can Chicago or New York get those long hoped for races? A return to Long Beach or Indianapolis? Something a little more exciting than what we are getting right now in Miami.

Sadly, it won’t happen, but the need to put it out there to the F1 universe felt important.

This article was originally written for The Roar. You can read the published version here