Leclerc takes pole, Sainz P2 for Ferrari front row lockout at inaugural Miami GP; Verstappen fumbles late effort, settles for P3
The first-ever qualifying for the first-ever Miami Grand Prix and Round 5 of the F1 Championship didn’t disappoint. Under the hot Florida sun on the Miami International Autodrome, temporarily laid out around the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium, drivers faced a steep learning curve on this brand new, tight and twisty 5.412 kilometer street circuit where one false move might put them into the foreboding and at times claustrophobic walls. Team Ferrari earned the highest grades this Saturday, with Charles Leclerc wringing the neck of his skittish Prancing Horse to take pole and teammate Carlos Sainz backing him up in P2. Leclerc benefitted not only from his own steady efforts at mastering this virgin circuit but also from his key championship rival’s untimely Q3 error. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, coming off a dominant race win two weeks ago in Emilia-Romagna, uncharacteristically muffed his final quali effort when he ran off the circuit with snap oversteer and was unable to mount another challenge to the day’s Ferrari dominance as time expired. Verstappen will start P3 on a track where overtaking offline looks to be nigh impossible. So the Dutch reigning world champ will be hoping for not only solid strategy form his team to leapfrog the two Ferraris ahead in the pits but also perhaps some further unforced errors by the Scuderia duo. With Sainz having not completed the first lap in the last two races and Leclerc blowing a certain P3 by overdriving and binning it into the wall at Imola last race, team Ferrari will be looking for their talented but mistake prone duo to perhaps dial it back a notch and drive a clean contest come Sunday to take the maximum possible points.
Verstappen’s Red Bull wingman Sergio Perez set a final fast lap good enough to line up alongside his team leader on the second row in P4. Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas did yeoman’s work after he crashed out in Free Practice 1 on Friday, recovering all the way to set an excellent P5 time. That he bested his old Mercedes mate Lewis Hamilton by a position must have been extra pleasing. That said, Hamilton was probably satisfied to haul his twitchy Silver Arrow up to P6 on the grid, as his junior teammate George Russell struggled mightily with severe porpoising, that 2022 Mercedes bugaboo, and was unceremoniously bounced out in Q2. Russell will start way back in P12 and will be looking for strategic help and perhaps some inclement weather to fight his way forward on Sunday. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda acquitted themselves well in Miami, qualifying P7 and P9 respectively, while Lando Norris of McLaren and Lance Stroll of Aston Martin were their lone teams’ representatives to make it into Q3, with Norris willing himself up to P8 and Stroll rounding out the front of the grid in P10.
Top 10 qualifiers for the Miami GP:
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:29.474 | 1:29.130 | 1:28.796 | |
| 2 | 1:30.079 | 1:29.729 | 1:28.986 | |
| 3 | 1:29.836 | 1:29.202 | 1:28.991 | |
| 4 | 1:30.055 | 1:29.673 | 1:29.036 | |
| 5 | 1:30.845 | 1:29.751 | 1:29.475 | |
| 6 | 1:30.388 | 1:29.797 | 1:29.625 | |
| 7 | 1:30.779 | 1:30.128 | 1:29.690 | |
| 8 | 1:30.761 | 1:29.634 | 1:29.750 | |
| 9 | 1:30.485 | 1:30.031 | 1:29.932 | |
| 10 | 1:30.441 | 1:29.996 | 1:30.676 |
Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s race airs live beginning at 3:30 PM Eastern on ABC here in the States. Look for a real street fight in Miami with potential for several Safety Cars/Red Flags to shake up the order. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!