Miami Grand Prix results: Kimi Antonelli wins from Lando Norris to extend title lead

Norris was left to ruminate on the pit stop decision. “How did we not win this?” he said on the radio. “We can make it easy for ourselves.”

But it was a strong showing from McLaren, who introduced a major upgrade package this weekend, putting them back in contention with Mercedes.

Leclerc complained over the radio that he was stopped on lap 21 and was not consulted.

The decision dropped him in the field and forced him to fight past slower cars. He regained third, but lost it on the perfect lap to Norris’ team-mate Piastiri as he began to struggle to catch up again.

Then Leclerc spun on his own on the last lap. He hit the wall and wrecked his car and had to puncture, and that meant he lost two more places as they came past first Russell and then Verstappen and went out in the final corner.

“This is all on me,” Leclerc said. “I’m very upset with myself. I need to see that the knee is different but that’s not an excuse. It’s not acceptable.”

Verstappen climbed out from under the safety car for his new tyres, hoping the gamble would pay off. He threw behind him, but some of the fiercest ones lashed out and the others shot in front of him, leaving him in the lead in the middle of the race.

But he couldn’t hold on to his worn tires and slipped down. Still, fifth was a good result after his initial mistake, which was followed by some very aggressive racing that drew some complaints from his rivals.

Leclerc slipped to sixth ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, whose car was damaged in a first-lap collision with Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.

The Argentine took eighth ahead of the Williams cars of Carlos Sanz and Alex Albon.