Winners and losers from F1's 2025 Miami sprint race

Any Formula 1 race that starts with a top driver crashing on a reconnaissance lap and ends with a winner decided by the timing of a safety car is always likely to have an above average number of flops and stars.

Here's who we put in each category after the 2025 Miami Grand Prix sprint - and also how several of them then changed after the flurry of post-race penalties.

Winner: Lando Norris

Started third, won the race - something about Miami agrees with Lando Norris.

Just as a safety car had assisted him in winning this grand prix outright last year - his first win in F1 - another for Liam Lawson forcing Fernando Alonso’s car into a crash on Saturday meant he could emerge from the pits ahead of Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton, and without them attacking him on warmer tyres.

It’s fair to say luck hasn’t always been on Norris’s side in his F1 career, but today everything added up beautifully.

And don’t forget, while Piastri stretched away into a big lead initially, Norris had reeled him in and was on top of him just before the pitstops triggered chaos.

Norris produced the pace to match his luck. - Jack Benyon

Loser: Oscar Piastri

It’s easy to put Piastri in the loser category as he had a certain win taken away by circumstances almost totally out of his control.

The optimist in me reckons this could have been worse for him, as a flying Hamilton on softs could have easily relegated Piastri a position further back had the safety car not effectively concluded the race.

That being said, Piastri did brilliantly to use the rules to his advantage at Turn 1 to ruin Kimi Antonelli’s chances of a fairytale from pole, and looked assured at least until he came under pressure before the stops from Norris.

Other than having extended a bigger gap to ward off Norris - though with a big enough gap they may have double stacked on the same lap with Piastri ahead, or Piastri could have got back ahead before the safety car was called - there's little more Piastri could have done. - JB

Winner: Lance Stroll

A driver who gets a lot of criticism - but right now, the only Aston Martin driver with any points in 2025.

Lance Stroll's wet weather/mixed conditions prowess might actually be the strongest part of his game, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he turned an early leap to slicks into an excellent sixth place on the road from 16th on the grid then gained another spot from the penalties. - Matt Beer

Losers: Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes

What a shame that sublime Kimi Antonelli pole lap (first time at the track, just one practice session, first lap on soft tyres at the track - stunning) turned into not much.

Antonelli was heading for the losers column as soon as he was bullied down the order by Piastri at the start, and then the pit incident with Max Verstappen - in which Antonelli and Mercedes were totally blameless - turned the race into a total disaster that even his later elevation back to seventh via the penalties didn't really rescue.

And George Russell's fourth place in the other car wasn't much consolation. - MB

Winner: Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton looked lost as he really, really struggled to keep the Williams of Alex Albon behind him in the opening stages and looked destined to finish sixth.

But his personal choice to be one of the first drivers to pit - and taking soft tyres versus the mediums most others switched to - allowed him to jump three places in conjunction with the issues for Antonelli and Verstappen.

Hamilton might have even been second had there not been a safety car as he was closing on Piastri and had warmer tyres than his rival, which could have unlocked a fight for the win after he also took victory in the China sprint.

However, given the early stages were fairly dire, to take third is a massive win for him and more points he really needs. - JB

Loser: Charles Leclerc

Smashing into the wall at the exit of Turn 10 on the way to the grid meant Charles Leclerc missed the sprint race, and it’s also not optimal preparation for qualifying for the grand prix proper just a few hours later.

Looking at the replays, you have to feel sorry for Leclerc given the amount of standing water on the track. He’ll certainly be more tentative next time as this was a chance to score a podium for him. - JB

Loser: Max Verstappen

It’s hard to understand what Red Bull was doing when it released Verstappen straight into Antonelli.

"Human error, we'll learn from it," Christian Horner told Sky Sports F1.

Verstappen had already locked up and gone off at Turn 17 before the race started and complained about his “terrible” visor during the race. But he was a shoo-in for third before the pit chaos broke his front wing.

The only saving grace was that Antonelli avoided spinning into a crowded pitlane full of people. While understandable, the 10-second penalty was also harsh on Verstappen who was a nailed-on podium finisher to that point and did nothing wrong. - JB

Eventual Winner: Yuki Tsunoda

Yuki Tsunoda was initially just a semi-positive footnote in a Red Bull 'loser' section. He'd nailed the switch to slicks (the first driver to do it) and it brought him up to ninth on the road, but having started last after his qualifying mess that wasn't really enough to qualify for 'winner' status.

Three penalties ahead later and Tsunoda's sixth having started 20th, and everything looks a lot better. - MB

Loser: Fernando Alonso

Alonso was on course to score his first points of the season but he was clipped into a spin by Lawson that put him in the wall at Turn 12.

He likely would have been sixth - it’s hard to be precise because of the chaos caused by the pitstops and Verstappen’s penalty - and that would have been an epic return from 10th on the grid.

He’s scored points in his last 20 seasons, and Miami so far has been a hint that doesn’t have to end. At least Stroll took that sixth instead, likely giving the Aston Martin team something of a confidence and morale boost. - JB

Loser: Carlos Sainz

Just as Carlos Sainz was getting his new life at Williams into gear, mistakes in both qualifying and the race have turned the sprint half of his Miami weekend into a real mess. He hit the wall in the sprint race which caused a puncture.

Given the pace team-mate Albon has shown while executing things more tidily, at least Sainz knows the Williams is capable of decent things around Miami if he can clean up his act for the main part of the event. - MB

Loser: Pirelli's still-useless wet tyre

It's standard practice now to see an F1 race start delayed because the track is so wet and yet still not see the wet tyre be considered a usable option.

Sainz looked like he might at least give it a try, before the suspension of the initial race start harpooned any chance of an outlier. 

Despite changes to the wet tyre for this year, it’s still only really suitable for a level of rain where the visibility will be so bad F1 will almost certainly not race anyway.

So, as usual, F1 went through the motions of it being too wet to race, but then everyone was on intermediates by the time they could race anyway, and it dried up so much that they even got onto slicks.

For all of that to occur within the condensed timing of a sprint race was a particularly odd look. It was a concentrated example of the dilemma F1's got with trying to get wet races going. - Scott Mitchell-Malm

Winner then Loser: Alex Albon

Even just initial plaudits for putting Hamilton under excruciating pressure battling for sixth in the opening stages might have been enough for a 'winners' tag, but ending the race in fourth place for Albon was certainly an excellent return. It was his and Williams’s best ever result in a sprint.

Then he received a penalty for not sticking to the correct minimum time under the safety car and that fourth place became 11th. - JB

Winner then Loser: Ollie Bearman

A real incisive race performance in tricky circumstances - highlighted by an amazing start where he slipped between a sandwich of two cars - meant eighth place on the road from 19th on the grid.

But then an unsafe release penalty turned that heroic point into a frustrating 14th on the final results. Which makes Bearman a winner in our eyes for his driving, but a loser in terms of actual outcome. - MB