Norris: It’s been a long time coming

While the Safety Car helped Norris' chances of winning, that McLaren MCL38 had the performance advantage over Max Verstappen's Red Bull RB20, otherwise, the Dutchman should've been able to catch the Briton after the restart, but that was not the case.

Norris did not put a foot wrong and pulled out a comfortable gap to the Red Bull ace, his maiden win being the reward after a roller coaster of a weekend that saw him under-deliver in Sprint Qualifying and the Sprint - somehow.

"What a race," trumpeted Norris after becoming the 114th grand prix winner in the history of the sport.

"It’s been a long time coming, but we’ve finally managed to do it," he added. "I’m so happy for the whole team, and what we’ve achieved together. We’ve had a few little setbacks across the weekend, but today we managed to put it all together.

"The car was great, the strategy was perfect, and I’m over the moon. I’m proud of everyone in this team today. I’ve always believed in them, and they’ve always had faith in me, and today we’ve really justified that.

"A huge thanks go to them for the hard work they’ve put in that made this possible," the McLaren star concluded.

While the Miami Grand Prix marked a major milestone for Norris, matter were different on the other side of the Papaya garage for teammate Oscar Piastri.

Piastri did not have the full upgrade on his MCL38 this weekend, Norris did, but the Australian driver did well to outqualify his teammate in the Sprint qualifying but the tables turned in the grand prix qualifying, albeit not by a great margin.

But Piastri's race got undone after his fight with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, the Spaniard losing control of his car as he attempted to pass the #81 McLaren causing front wing damage to it necessitating a pit stop.

While Sainz was given a five-second penalty that dropped him from fourth to fifth in the final race classification, that does not change anything for Piastri.

Piastri dropped down the order and only managed to finish 13th, he reflected: "A great day for the team, but a disappointing afternoon on my side.

"I feel like we did a lot of things right in the first half of the race but a few things didn’t go our way in the second half. The car felt the best it’s been all year, so I don’t think my result should take away from the performance by the rest of the team.

"Well done to Lando and everyone at McLaren. The race was won on merit today and it’s really promising for what’s to come," the 23-year-old from Melbourne concluded.