MIAMI GP – Max Verstappen takes seventh consecutive pole a tenth ahead of Charles Leclerc
Max Verstappen has taken his seventh consecutive pole at the Miami Grand Prix, the Dutchman set a 27.241 going nearly a tenth and a quarter faster than Charles Leclerc. The Dutchman however didn’t improve on his final lap but the car looked under better control than it did in sprint qualifying yesterday.
Verstappen had earlier in the day held off Leclerc as they started alongside each other in the sprint, Leclerc will go into tomorrow’s race trying everything he can to try and beat the Dutchman. A difficult task as Red Bull has appeared to be almost unstoppable, his seventh pole puts him one away from equaling Ayrton Senna’s all-time record.
While Verstappen is well placed to claim his fifth win in six races this season, the fact that Leclerc’s Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz beat the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez to third could provide the Scuderia duo with a strategic advantage on Sunday.
Leclerc appeared to struggle to get an improvement on his final attempt as one by one Verstappen’s challengers fell away, the Monacan was seven hundredths faster than his teammate Carlos Sainz. Both Ferrari’s managed to split the Red Bull’s but only just as Sainz was only five thousandths faster than Sergio Perez.
The combination of Ferrari’s consistently strong qualifying pace and the mystery of how much Norris could get out of his upgraded McLaren appeared to be setting up a grandstand finish to Qualifying. When Verstappen, who had gone fastest on the first runs in Q3, struggled with his second lap, the door appeared to be open for a Ferrari pole.
Verstappen had been surprised when a scruffy lap had earned him Sprint pole a day earlier and was once more left to celebrate an imperfect performance. Saying “We definitely improved the car a bit. I don’t know what it is, every single year we come here, I find it extremely difficult to be consistent with the car feeling, the tyre feeling over one lap.”
Leclerc has made an impressive recovery after missing most of the weekend’s sole practice session following an early spin, and is cautiously optimistic of pressuring Verstappen.
he explained, “It was very close until Q3 when we started to push for the last one or two tenths, we started to lose the tyres in sectors two and three, overheating them quite a bit. So today that’s where we lost a bit of time. However, the race is long tomorrow, this morning [in the Sprint] we showed a good pace so I hope we can put Max under a bit more pressure.”
McLaren has been a team on the up in 2024 Lando Norris going fifth, using the upgrades the Englishman a tenth and a half almost behind Perez and ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri by nearly a tenth. Like on Friday it looked difficult to improve on the second runs in Q3 bringing qualifying to an anti-climax.
Norris had shown improvement on his final attempt but an error on his final attempt left him last in Q3 to start tenth. However, the truth was he was never in contention at the front in qualifying on Saturday, and even tried the medium tyre in the second session, as Mercedes did in the third.
George Russell put his Mercedes seventh, going nearly four-tenths behind Piastiri and half a tenth faster than teammate Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes continuing the inconsistent form and lack of pace they have had all season. Hamilton was four hundredths faster than Nico Hulkenberg in ninth, the Haas driver nearly half a tenth ahead of Yuki Tsunoda.
Mercedes, qualifying about seventh and eighth is becoming their new normal, but was at least an improvement on being knocked out in SQ2 in qualifying for the sprint. There was a glimmer of hope for Hamilton and the team when he suddenly went third quickest, behind only Leclerc and Verstappen, at the end of the second session, only for their pace to mysteriously vanish again in the final session.
Lance Stroll was the fastest of those knocked out in Q2 he missed out by two-hundredths of a second as he went a tenth ahead of Pierre Gasly in what has been a tight midfield this season. Gasly was just under half a tenth faster than his Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon.
Neither Aston Martin made it into Q3 as Stroll out-qualified teammate Fernando Alonso, a rarity as he has struggled to match the two-time champion. The Spaniard fifteenth slowest of the cars knocked out in Q2, nearly a hundredth and a half behind Alex Albon’s Williams.
Valtteri Bottas was fastest of the drivers knocked out in Q1, the Sauber driver a hundredth behind Alonso. Bottas was a quarter of a second faster than Logan Sargeant, the Floridian starts his home race from seventeenth. Daniel Ricciardo was eighteenth ahead of Kevin Magnussen with Guanyu Zhou completing the field.