Verstappen vaults to Miami GP pole ahead of McLaren favorites

Max Verstappen scored his third pole in four grands prix by pipping Lando Norris to top spot in qualifying at the Miami Grand Prix.

McLaren started the session as favorite to lock out the front row after scoring a comfortable one-two in the sprint, but Verstappen executed flawlessly to capitalize on another pair of scrappy performances from Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Verstappen maximized his Red Bull Racing car’s advantage in the first sector to overcome McLaren’s better run around the rest of the lap. He was almost 0.2s quicker than Norris in the first sector despite his rear axle snapping out on entry into the first turn. From there he did enough to minimize the losses, emerging with a 0.065s advantage.

“It’s been a great qualifying,” he said. “I think we improved the car a tiny amount as well, which helped me to rotate it a bit better.

“Q1, Q2, Q3, just improving every run, really trying to find the limit.

“Around here it’s just very complicated with the tires over a lap, but in the end it worked out well. I’m very happy to be on pole.”

Norris’s fastest middle sector wasn’t enough to counter Verstappen in the first split, but the Briton was pleased to be the lead McLaren driver after a tough qualifying run before Miami.

“I’m happy with today,” he said. “I’m happy with the progress I’ve been making with the car, with myself.

“I didn’t deliver, but the pace was there. The car’s still been feeling good. I’ve been feeling better than I have done over the past weekends.”

Sprint polesitter Kimi Antonelli scored his best-ever qualifying result for a grand prix with third. The 18-year-old Mercedes driver was only 0.002s slower than Norris, which was more than fast enough to split him from teammate Piastri.

“This weekend is going well so far,” he said. “I struggled a little bit during quali. I didn’t have such a clean run like I did yesterday, but that last lap was quite good.

“Definitely the gaps are super tight. Definitely if you can gain just a few hundredths, you can gain so many places. It’s just about putting everything together.

“So far this weekend I’ve been doing that. Hopefully tomorrow we can have a good race.”

The result places him at the head of the second row alongside Piastri after the pair battled for the lead of the sprint in the same configuration on the front row.

Piastri was 0.171s off the pace after a lackluster second lap, putting him just 0.01s ahead of George Russell. Carlos Sainz outqualified Williams teammate Alex Albon for the third grand prix in a row, the pair set to start sixth and seventh on the grid. Charles Leclerc struggled to eighth for Ferrari, telling the team after he finished Q2 in a similar position that there was nothing more to be extracted from the car. Esteban Ocon made his first Q3 appearance of the year in ninth, and Yuki Tsunoda completed the top 10, the Japanese driver lapping 0.739s slower than his polesitting teammate.

Isack Hadjar missed out on Q3 by just 0.02s to qualify 11th ahead of Lewis Hamilton, for whom a scrappy lap — comprising oversteer through Turn 1 and a lockup at the end of the straight — eliminated him in 12th in his first failure to make Q3 this season.

Gabriel Bortoleto qualified 13th ahead of Jack Doohan and Liam Lawson, who was dealing with a battery issue throughout the segment. Nico Hulkenberg qualified 16th ahead of Fernando Alonso, whose car had to be rebuilt with haste following his late sprint crash with Liam Lawson.

The team revealed that the Spaniard’s car required a new gearbox, right-front corner, floor, rear wing and front wing after the Kiwi tipped him into the a spin that ended with him in the wall at Turn 12.

Pierre Gasly was knocked out in 18th ahead of Lance Stroll, who completed Aston Martin’s first double Q1 exit of the season, and Oliver Bearman, who qualified 20th for the second day in a row.