Lando Norris left screaming at Max Verstappen as Oscar Piastri fends off his McLaren team-mate to win again in Miami and open up gap in title fight – while Lewis Hamilton rages at Ferrari

Lando Norris was left screaming at Max Verstappen, and howling at the sun.

Nothing can quite click as the British driver tries desperately to wrest back his world championship hopes.

The bald fact is that his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri won the Miami Grand Prix, his third victory in succession and fourth of the season. The 24-year-old Australian holds a 16-point lead over Norris, runner-up on the day, but exerts a tighter grip on his short and curlies.

Further radio drama unfolded down the field from the tongue of another Brit who is struggling to prove himself at his best, Lewis Hamilton, who accused his Ferrari pit wall of being so unreactive that they might as well ‘take a tea break while you’re at it.’

More of that later, but first to the few degrees by which Norris is missing out on the success he is so close to. He needs something to fall his way, but then again he needs to make it happen. Right now, that is a trick which eludes him.

He qualified second, fine but not super-great in a hot-to-trot McLaren. The real thorn in his side, as much as Piastri, is the man who took pole – Max Verstappen. Becoming a father to his first baby, Lily, a few days ago has done nothing to douse his fire. He could change nappies all night without losing potency behind the wheel.

Oscar Piastri held off McLaren team-mate Lando Norris to win the Miami Grand Prix

Piastri increased his advantage over Norris in the world title fight with his third straight victory

Lewis Hamilton raged at his Ferrari engineer over a botched swap before finishing eighth

So, to the start. Verstappen was away cleanly. He moved right to cover Norris. All straight-forward so far. But the defending world champion carried too much pace into the first corner, locked up and Norris was side-by-side with him.

Coming into the next turn, the chicane’s left-hander, Norris had nowhere to go on the outside. He ran off track and plummeted straight to sixth.

‘He forced me off, mate,’ complained Norris of Verstappen. ‘What am I meant to do? Just drive into the wall?

‘I was completely alongside.’

The stewards’ stated approach to the opening lap is to be laissez-faire, and in that light their decision was hard to quibble with.

Afterwards, Norris was still debating the incident, saying: ‘If I don’t go for it, people complain, and if I do go for it, people complain, too. But that is the way it is with Max. Crash or don’t pass.’

It was the second race in succession that Verstappen has been involved in a first-lap kafuffle. In Saudi a fortnight ago he went off track in combat with Piastri and came out ahead. He was handed a five-second penalty – correctly that time.

He was furious then and went as close to giving the post-race press conference the Trappist monk treatment as the FIA rules half-allowed. No need for monosyllables of protest here.

Verstappen and Piastri locked horns before the champion dropped out of the podium spots

Norris won the sprint in Miami on Saturday but now trails the impressive Piastri by 16 points

George Russell finished on the podium again for Mercedes, finishing ahead of Verstappen

At this stage, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli was on Verstappen’s tail until he was passed by Piastri, who started fourth, on lap four.

The Aussie pressed his case until he was right on the Dutchman’s tail. Verstappen repelled him as best he could for a couple of laps. Piastri did not relent.

And at the start of lap 14 Piastri passed Verstappen at the first corner. A good move and the papaya car was free to stretch out a lead – more than half-a-minute over every other team by the end.

Norris scampered past Antonelli to go third and was now back into striking range of his best pal Max. Twice he tried to make the Piastri-style move at the first corner on him, using DRS into Turn One. Twice he failed.

He was never likely to make it stick on the outside, even if Verstappen was complaining of ‘f****** useless brakes’.

Norris tried again at Turn 11. He pushed Verstappen off, and handed the place back. On the next lap, the 18th, he pulled off the move successfully, again at Turn 11.

It was a triumph of sorts, but in his arm wrestle with the Red Bull he lost time to Piastri. He was more eight seconds or so back and that made any chance of catching the leader redundant.

Norris finished 4.6sec short of the pace.

Verstappen got away cleanly but was involved in a first-lap incident with Norris (right)

Hamilton was condemned to eighth after being instructed to swap places with Leclerc again

Hamilton’s weekend was mixed, mostly not so good and decidedly deteriorating. Yes, he took third place in the sprint on Saturday after a clever pit stop brought him in an early change for dry tyres in a rain-hit race. But he qualified a lowly 12th for the main event.

A mistake by Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar gifted him a place. Then, treading treacle, he went wheel-to-wheel for an age with Haas’ Esteban Ocon. He could not overtake him for 10th place, and only went through when the Frenchman peeled into the pits.

That was not a sentence that was meant to be written about Hamilton when he joined Ferrari for £60million a year.

However, he later passed the man he replaced in red, Williams’ Carlos Sainz. That put him on the tail of team-mate Charles Leclerc. The seven-time world champion believed he had superior pace.

‘Do you want me just to sit here the whole race?’ he asked, imploringly. Later: ‘This is not good teamwork. That’s all I’m going to say.’

And as he was told they would swap cars, he uttered his sarcastic remark: ‘Have a tea break while you’re at it.’ He was up to seventh, but making no headway.

His lack of progress prompted Ferrari to switch him and Leclerc again, understandably. Hamilton, condemned to finish eighth, was not impressed by the instruction, mind. Told that Sainz was 1.4sec back from him, he hissed: ‘Do you want me to let him pass as well?’

Hamilton and Sainz touched at the end. Black clouds must have entered Lewis’s mind. And, clearly, it’s all happy families at Ferrari.

Verstappen, hampered by a VSC phase after Haas’ Ollie Bearman broke down, came home fourth. But, by then, he had played his regular role as poor Norris’s real-life bogeyman.

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