Oscar Piastri dictated the race and set the pace at Miami, to strengthen his lead in the F1 World Championship

The young Aussie now heads the leaderboard on 135 points from team mate Lando Norris on 115 and Max Verstappen on 99. Verstappen initially held onto pole position, battling with Norris who ran wide and dropped down the order – and saw Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and team mate Piastri fly past in the process. But as the race settled in, Piastri quickly overtook Antonelli and Red Bull’s race leader came under immense pressure.

Eventually, the papaya cars overwhelmed Verstappen to seal a commanding 1-2 for McLaren. One wondered if the Dutch champion could outfox the two McLaren’s with some clever race craft as he did in Suzuka Japan earlier but it wasn’t to be.

The McLaren MCL39s were in a class of their own! Mercedes’ George Russell came home a distant third half a minute behind, for the third time this season. Have the cars and teams begun to settle into a performance pecking order one last time as we get closer to the halfway mark of the season? 

McLaren are the best without doubt, they’ve won five of the opening six rounds. Have Mercedes beaten Red Bull and Ferrari in the race to extract what's left in this generation of cars? 

Williams are the most improved team so far as Alex Albon scored valuable points with his fighting P5 finish at Miami as teammate Carlos Sainz brought home the other FW47 in P9! 

After six races Scuderia Ferrari found themselves asking more questions rather than having an answer for McLaren up front. The defending Constructor’s Champions are unable to qualify well nor deliver on race day. Although Lewis Hamilton managed to nick a Sprint podium on the Saturday, their pit wall-to-radio communication on Sunday was reminiscent of the outfit that just hasn’t delivered for a long time now! It isn’t the Reds' time yet. But while they’re fumbling strategically and lack overall pace so far, it appears that we are truly in a new dawn, a new era.

And who better to announce it than Max Verstappen the defending quadruple-champion, as he remarked, mightily impressed by Piastri, “he delivers when he has to, barely makes mistakes”. The circus has a new ring master and it heads to Italy this weekend for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola. Get ready for a classic!

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Round 7 | Imola | Sunday, 18th May 18:30 | F1TV & FanCode App