Lando Norris accused Max Verstappen of deliberately pushing him off the road as Oscar Piastri won the Miami Grand Prix to extend his lead in the world championship.
Pole-sitter Verstappen and Norris went toe-to-toe through the opening two corners at the Hard Rock Stadium, with the latter falling off the track and losing four positions.
Norris took aim at Verstappen’s tactics – claiming he had to take evasive action to avoid hitting the wall – but the stewards took no action against the Red Bull driver.
Piastri passed Verstappen on lap 14 to assume the lead and, although Norris followed him through four laps later, he was already nine seconds behind.
Piastri took the chequered flag 4.6 seconds clear of Norris to land his third victory in a row and increase his title advantage over Norris from nine points to 16.
George Russell finished third, half-a-minute back and ahead of Verstappen, while Lewis Hamilton was involved in a radio spat with Ferrari after he called on them to move team-mate Charles Leclerc out of his way.
Ferrari ushered Leclerc aside but then told Hamilton to allow his team-mate back through in the closing stages. Leclerc and Hamilton finished seventh and eighth.
Norris had acknowledged that he needed to kick his stuttering title bid into gear and, although he took advantage of a safety car to win Saturday’s sprint race, he will leave Florida further behind his team-mate in the title race.
His hopes of victory evaporated on the first lap when Verstappen out-braked himself into the opening right-hander and had Norris, who started alongside the Dutchman on the front row, for company at the next corner.
But Norris ran out of room and when he re-joined the track he was down in sixth position. Verstappen retained the lead.
Norris was straight on the radio to complain: “He forced me off, mate. What am I meant to do? Just drive into the wall or something? I was completely alongside (him).”
At the last round in Saudi Arabia, Verstappen was penalised five seconds for gaining an advantage when he ran off the road to keep Piastri behind in the run down to turn one.
On lap four, Piastri, who started fourth, moved clear of Kimi Antonelli to take second. Verstappen then launched a champion’s defence to keep Piastri’s superior McLaren behind.
But, after he carried too much speed into the first corner on lap 14, Piastri swooped by. By now, Norris, who had made light work of Alex Albon, Russell and Antonelli to take third, was on Verstappen’s gearbox and back in contention.
On lap 17, he slung his McLaren underneath Verstappen’s Red Bull but both drivers ran off the road and Norris was advised to give the position back – which he did at the penultimate corner.
Norris finally got his man on the next lap but he had lost more than six seconds and Piastri was nine seconds up the road.
Hamilton wanted Ferrari to order Leclerc aside in the battle for a distant seventh.
“You want me just to sit here”, said the seven-time world champion, who felt he was owed a favour by moving over for Leclerc at the second round in China.
Hamilton was back on the radio: “This is not good team work. That is all I am going to say.”
Ferrari ordered Leclerc out of the way but Hamilton snapped: “Have a tea break while you are at it. Come on!”
On lap 38, Leclerc allowed Hamilton through with the Monegasque then complaining he was in his team-mate’s dirty air.
Hamilton could not get anywhere near Antonelli and allowed Leclerc back past – under instruction from the Ferrari pit wall – with four laps to go.
Hamilton was then told by race engineer Riccardo Adami that former Ferrari man, Carlos Sainz, was 1.4 sec behind him.
Hamilton hit back: “You want me to let him past as well?” Hamilton and Sainz then banged wheels at the last corner on the last lap, with the former finishing just three tenths ahead.
