It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these blog posts. In that time, there have been two races, both won by Oscar Piastri, who has established himself as the current title favourite. Yet, the always tenacious Max Verstappen has fought hard to defend his title, taking pole in both events despite a clear car disadvantage. And in both races, he has faced controversial first lap incidents with the McLaren drivers.

In Saudi Arabia, Max used the high-speed advantage evident in his Red Bull to take pole by one-hundredth of a second from Piastri, whilst Lando Norris crashed out in qualifying and had to start the race from tenth. Yet at the race start, despite being on the dirty side of the grid, Oscar had a fantastic launch and looked set to take the lead. Max, however, was not about to give his position up. He outbroke himself and cut the corner to stay ahead of Oscar. But, because Oscar got a better launch and didn’t back down, the stewards handed Verstappen a justified five-second penalty. Without this incident, Max would likely have won the race, as the dirty air made cars extremely hard to follow, which negated the McLaren’s race pace advantage. Saudi Arabia was a huge test for Oscar, who proved that he could match Verstappen in battle. Yet come Miami, his teammate was to lose out in a similar situation.

Last year, Lando Norris struggled to get one up on Max. From Austria, to Austin, to Mexico, it seemed like Verstappen was always able to assert his dominance in contentious situtions. Thus, when the front row in Miami was occupied by Max and Lando, it seemed to be the perfect opportunity for Lando to best Max in the way Oscar had in Saudi. However, once again, Lando fumbled his opportunity. He tried to pass Max around turn two, a risky manoeuvrer that could easily go wrong. Thus, when Max got a snap of oversteer, Lando was pushed onto the curb and lost a handful of positions. And crucially, Lando found himself behind Piastri, who was in third. Max occupying first place made the first half of the race quite exciting, as he defended his positions aggressively against the quicker McLarens. Yet, even in this sequence, Oscar was able to pass Max far more effectively than Lando proved, which allowed Oscar to open up a gap that Lando was unable to close. Thus, due to poor positioning at the start of the race and through the battles against Verstappen, Lando lost a race on a weekend in which was the quicker McLaren driver. And now, Oscar has become the first McLaren driver since Mika Hakkinen to win three races in a row and has a sixteen-point lead in the championship. If Lando wants to win this title, he has to turn the narrative around very quickly.

There was some hope for Ferrari fans at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Whilst Hamilton had a poor performance, Charles Leclerc pulled off an amazing tyre strategy. He took his mediums further than anyone else and then used fresher, grippier tyres to overtake his way to the podium. It was Ferrari’s first podium of the year and provided some hope that their season might begin to turn itself around. Then Miami destroyed all of that hope, because the Ferrari was comfortably the fifth fastest car. The team couldn’t even run their race properly. Hamilton, who had started on the hard tyres, found himself behind Leclerc after his stop. Since Lewis was on fresher mediums, he had a chance to make his way up the order. Yet, in typical fashion, Ferrari took three laps of dithering before deciding to swap the cars around. Once they finally had, Hamilton’s tyres had been cooked behind Leclerc and he was not able to make any progress. This scenario has happened to Ferrari so many times and they seem unable to make obvious decisions. It’s really not a difficult task, the teams have meetings before the races, in which they are supposed to plan what to do in different scenarios. Yet whenever Ferrari is in any scenario, they seem to need to have a committee meeting before making their minds up. I do not expect this to change and every time it happens; it loses the team valuable points. The car is bad enough without them sabotaging themselves every other weekend, yet the team never learns.

Under James Vowles’ leadership, Williams have had a turnaround. A few years ago, they were the worst team on the grid and were happy to score points. This season, they have been the best team in the midfield and have scored in all but one race. In both Saudi and Miami, both cars found themselves in the points. In Saudi Arabia, Carlos Sainz brought back his tactics from Singapore 2023, keeping Albon in his DRS to prevent the quicker Isack Hadjar from being able to overtake them. It led to a solid eighth and ninth finish. Then in Miami, the team really shone, mixing it up with the top teams throughout the weekend. Whilst damage relegated Sainz to a ninth-place finish, Alex Albon’s pace was outstanding. He beat both Ferraris and one Mercedes to finish fifth. Whilst Williams has stopped developing this year’s car to focus on 2026, they have established themselves as a serious midfield threat. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m an Alex Albon’s fan, Ferrari’s year would have broken me by now. Instead, I can watch the races to see one of my favourite drivers prove why he’s one of the sport’s best.