Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix

Driver Quotes - Sunday 3 May

Oscar Piastri "To come away with a double podium is really positive for the team. Overall, I am very happy with how we performed today. Going long was the right call, and we had some good battles out on track. We probably had a little more in us, and there were some tough moments out there, but the pace is really encouraging, and it's always nice to be on the podium.

"We're not quite back in the position we were last year, and there is still a gap to Mercedes, but we are definitely getting closer. Thank you to the whole team for all of their work in delivering this package, we've made a good step forward, so let's see what we can do in Canada."

Lando Norris "We leave Miami with mixed feelings. As a team, we should be proud: two cars on the podium, a big points haul, and a clear step forward that put us in a genuine fight for the win. I felt I drove very well all weekend and extracted everything from the car. Credit to Kimi, he managed a strong race and Mercedes clearly still have an edge.

"At the same time, it hurts because a win was possible. We'll review what we could have done differently and keep pushing to bring more performance, especially in the high-speed corners where Mercedes are very strong. Miami suits us, but Canada has traditionally favoured them, so we'll stay patient, keep our heads down, and judge our progress over the next few races. We're proud of the step, but we want to be the best. This is a long season, and we're here to fight."

George Russell: That was a tough afternoon for us out there. The early laps felt OK and I thought that we were in the fight, but my pace wasn't strong on the Hard compound. We did make some changes near the end of the final stint which helped but this place has never been my favourite, and it showed. We gained a couple of positions at the end at least so the result was potentially better than it could have been. Kimi did a great job and showed that the car could challenge for victory. Congratulations to him; it's more great points for the team.

I am looking forward to going to Canada for the next race. It's a circuit I like and have gone well at in the past. From Montreal onwards, we have seven races in a short period of time up until the summer break. Those will be really important for us so I'm looking forward to getting back in the groove.

Kimi Antonelli: That was not an easy race at all but I'm so happy we were able to bring the victory home. My start wasn't as bad as in the Sprint, but we still lost a position. I then lost a place to Lando (Norris) before the Safety Car, but we were able to fight back. Our pace was strong, I was able to stay close, and then the team did a brilliant job with the strategy. The undercut worked out just about perfectly and, despite the McLaren coming out just ahead, we were able to get past with our tyres being up to temperature.

Despite our great start to the season, we are not getting ahead of ourselves. This is just the beginning of the season and there is a long year ahead. We are working super hard and the team is doing an incredible job at the moment. Without all the men and women at Brackley and Brixworth we wouldn't be in this position. We're going to continue to work hard, bring performance to the track, and aim for another good weekend in Canada.

Max Verstappen: "It was a very eventful race. Unfortunately, on lap one I lost the rear and spun in the second corner which was a shame. I recovered it well but then we had to manage and minimise the time loss. After that we opted to do an early stop. It is easy to say after the race, but the Hard tyre wasn't really working for us as we didn't have particularly good grip and struggled a bit at the end. I tried my best to hang in there, but it wasn't meant to be. However we for sure picked up a bit of performance which is really promising. Overall, it was a positive weekend for us and good to be back in the mix. The car is a work in progress and we keep on pushing and keep trying to improve, so we are heading in the right direction."

Isack Hadjar: "It's a tough one to take. We had a good start from the pitlane and I felt awesome the first few laps. We had very good pace early on and then the mistake came. I didn't see it coming and everything went so fast, I was just too eager and ended up finding the limit of the track. I need to look back at what happened to understand where I went wrong. The Team made a big step forward and the pace was much stronger today than we've had in the opening rounds, so I'm frustrated that I couldn't score what I felt were easy points. I'm already itching to get back into the car in Canada and maximise what we now have."

Charles Leclerc: The start and race overall went well and we were fighting for the podium. At the end, unfortunately, I made a mistake that cost me several positions. That's on me and I will make sure I don't repeat it again.

We will take the time we have in this short break before our next race in Canada to review and take some steps forward.

Lewis Hamilton: Today's race was affected by what happened on the opening lap, and with the damage I sustained, P7 was the best result we could achieve. Overall, it was a challenging weekend, but I believe we have a good car and there are some positives to take away. We just need to keep pushing, both at the factory and at the track, to keep adding performance and close the gap as we move forward.

Alex Albon: "It has been a difficult start to the season, so it is great to bring home a double points finish, which is a strong result for the team. We had a good start and I made up some positions within the first three laps, and the upgrades also seemed to run well allowing us to properly fight in the midfield. There is more to unlock with performance and we've been experimenting all weekend with setups; there is still a bit to go in terms of understanding the new package, but we'll keep pushing. Miami as a track tends to suit us, so we need to turn our attention to Montreal now and extracting the most out of another Sprint weekend."

Carlos Sainz: "Another very solid Sunday. I had a strong start and managed to position myself in contention for points. The pace from there was very good, the race was well-executed, and we were comfortably in the midfield fight. We've made progress over the early break, and the team has worked hard to bring this upgrade to the car. It shows how much we can achieve when we get our heads down, but this is still very far from where we want to be. Our aim is to keep up the good work and try score points regularly."

Arvid Lindblad: "It was always going to be a difficult race given the limited mileage this weekend. I struggled in the first stint, the pace on the Medium tyre wasn't there and I had very little grip. As soon as I switched to the Hard tyre, I felt more comfortable, the car was easier to drive and the pace definitely improved. We'll take a close look at everything from this weekend, I'll keep working on my side and continue learning. The team did a really good job this weekend, making the most out of some difficult situations. Overall, I'm really enjoying driving the car so far and I'm excited for another new track coming up."

Liam Lawson: "It's been a tough weekend here in Miami. We suffered a gearbox issue, which isn't something we've experienced before, but it meant that I lost control of the car and ultimately made contact with Pierre. The collision ended his race and the issue led to us having to retire the car, which is obviously frustrating. I went to see Pierre straight after the race to apologise and am glad he's okay, which is the main thing. We had a strong start and gained a lot of places, so it's a shame for the race to have ended as it did. We'll use the next couple of weeks to reset and take our learnings to Canada, which is a track I really enjoy."

Lance Stroll: "It's the first time this season both cars finished a race, so that's a positive to take from Miami. We managed to get more milage in the car and experienced less vibrations this weekend. In hindsight, our tyre strategy didn't work out but from a reliability perspective we made a step in the right direction. We now need to work on our performance related issues, there are lots of areas for us to improve on."

Fernando Alonso: "It's good to have both cars finish the race for the first time this season. We are still not where we want to be, but this weekend has allowed us to collect more data which we can analyse over the next few weeks before Canada. We have made clear progress in reliability, now our focus turns to performance. We need to keep working and be patient as a team."

Esteban Ocon: "We were going for a good race, but unfortunately after the pit stop that was not the case anymore, so we need to review that. I think it would have been difficult to get into the points as we lacked a little bit of pace and it was quite tricky to stay on track and get a good rhythm. We had some degrading on the tires as we were pushing hard. There are still plenty of positives to take and a lot of good lessons for us. Onto Montreal now and looking forward to seeing what we can do."

Oliver Bearman : "It was very, very close out there. I'm a bit disappointed, but like I've said this weekend, we were maybe anticipating a more challenging one, given that we didn't bring any updates to the car. Given all of that, I think we can be happy with our job as we finished close to the points, just not close enough, sadly. The race also didn't go in our favor as we had one DNF ahead of us, but on lap one I fell back, but with us bringing updates to the next race in Montreal, we can hopefully be stronger."

Nico Hulkenberg: "It's obviously not how we wanted to finish the weekend. We had a technical issue and had to retire, which is frustrating because the aim is always to be out there racing to the end. Overall, it's been a challenging weekend. We'll regroup, understand what happened and keep pushing. Staying persistent is key - that effort will pay off, and that's what we're focused on going forward."

Gabriel Borteleto: "I feel like the pace was there to fight for the points, but when you start last, there's not really much you can do. I made my way through the back of the field, there was some good pace and some good moves, but just not enough time to overtake. Considering I started last and finished P12, I think it was a solid result. I'm really proud of the team and the work they did to get the car out there yesterday, and we'll keep going."

Pierre Gasly: "Firstly, I am okay after the incident with Liam [Lawson]. It was definitely a scary feeling being flipped over in a Formula One car so I am glad it wasn't too serious and I was able to climb out and walk away. Frustratingly, my start was quite good, probably too good in the end, as I jumped a number of places but then I had to jump on the brakes to avoid Max [Verstappen] who had spun and then I lost some positions, putting us into the midfield pack. I was confident with our race pace, especially after yesterday, so I knew it was likely, had we had some clean air, we could have scored some solid points. Then my race was over with the incident with Liam, which, in my mind is totally avoidable and should not happen. He has visited me to say sorry but I am just disappointed for the team as we had the pace and we deserved points. There is a lot for us to review ahead of Canada to keep making the package better. We are the fifth fastest team and we have to consolidate that and keep chasing the pack ahead."

Franco Colapinto: "Another points finish in P8 today, so I am very happy. It has been a good week overall, from Buenos Aires a week ago, to meeting one of my sporting heroes in Lionel Messi, and now points in the Miami Grand Prix, I am definitely pleased. I would say we maximised everything we could today and that is where we are in the standings. It was a bit lonely in P8 with the top teams again just too far ahead of us but still, we did a solid job as a team on strategy, pit-stops and executing everything quite well. I had a bit of a slow start off the line so lost some positions there but then we recovered that quite quickly and I was pretty much back where I started. We had a small clash with Lewis [Hamilton] but thankfully did not have too much damage and we could carry on. From there, the pace was strong and we managed everything well to finish P8 at the end. Well done to the whole team for their effort and I know the hard work will continue to Montréal next time out where we will aim to continue this form and score more points."

Sergio Perez: "Today we were racing. It was a lot of fun fighting Fernando [Alonso] at the end. Unfortunately, he just passed me but overall it was a nice fight and one that I enjoyed a lot. We made the most out of today and we have learned a lot this weekend. We need to take this package back to the factory to analyze everything and see which direction to take, but I feel that we are not too far away to make a couple of clicks here and there and move forward again. Qualifying was very promising, and the Sprint event, and the crew did a great job in my pit stop too, so we see some real flashes. Overall things are going in the right direction."

Valtteri Bottas: "A difficult day out there today. It felt like we made some improvements with fresh tires, but the degradation was still huge. The drive-through penalty didn't help. Basically, my pit limiter was not on after pressing it, but we've been lacking a bit of feedback on the buttons, so I didn't press it hard enough. This weekend was an important one for us as a U.S. team racing at home and we've shown that we're definitely making progress in some areas. The biggest takeaway is that we still have work to do to find more performance, so we'll investigate that as a team and keep building."