Max Verstappen claims seventh successive Formula 1 pole position by topping Charles Leclerc in Miami Grand Prix Qualifying; Carlos Sainz third ahead of Sergio Perez; watch the Miami GP live on Sky Sports F1 on Sunday at 9pm, build-up at 7.30pm
Sunday 5 May 2024 09:06, UK
Max Verstappen saw off Charles Leclerc's challenge in Miami Grand Prix Qualifying to claim a seventh successive Formula 1 pole position.
As had been the case in Friday's Sprint Qualifying, the top 10 struggled to find improvement in the final part of the session but Red Bull's Verstappen had done enough with a time of 1:27.241 on his first flying lap in Q3.
Verstappen, whose world championship lead grew to 27 points as he won the Sprint earlier on Saturday, extended his career-best streak of poles to move within one of Ayrton Senna's all-time record of eight.
While Verstappen is well placed to claim his fifth win in six races this season as he chases a fourth successive drivers' title, 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.
Lando Norris took fifth in his upgraded McLaren ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri, with Mercedes duo George Russell and Lewis Hamilton seventh and eighth, respectively.
Haas' Nico Hulkenberg and RB's Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top 10 after both Aston Martins were surprisingly knocked out in Q2, with Fernando Alonso only managing 15th.
Tsunoda's RB team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was unable to build on an impressive fourth in the Sprint as he qualified 18th, and will start last due to a three-place grid penalty given to him following an incident in the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago.
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.
However, the challenge of pushing hard and keeping tyres in an ideal operating window proved too much for both Leclerc and Sainz, who were also unable to improve.
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.
"We definitely improved the car a bit," Verstappen said. "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.
"It's super hard to make sure that Sector 1 feels good, then Sector 3 at the end of the lap. To make that happen together is incredibly tough.
"Again today, it was about finding that balance. I think we did OK. It wasn't the most enjoyable lap of my career because of how slippery it is and you're not very confident on the lap. But we are on pole, and that's the most important thing."
Verstappen's historically dominant streak is showing no signs of slowing down, with his pole making him the first driver since Hamilton in 2015 to claim seven in a row, and the first driver to top the opening six Qualifying sessions of a season since Alain Prost in 1993.
The relatively moderate three-second margin by which he beat Leclerc to victory in the Sprint has given Ferrari hope of challenging in Sunday's full-length contest, but it remains to be seen how setup changes teams were allowed to make after the 100km race will impact long-run performance.
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.
"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," he explained.
"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 surprised the paddock on Friday by revealing what their chief executive Zak Brown admitted is basically a B-spec car, such was the haul of new parts that had been added to it for this weekend.
The changes appeared to be working well when Norris topped SQ1 and SQ2 on Friday, but the Brit then fell away in SQ3 when switching from medium to soft tyres.
He wasn't able to recapture that timesheet-topping speed on Saturday, with the fact he attempted his first run in Q3 on medium rather than soft tyres highlighting a failure to optimise the MCL38's performance.
"We did better than yesterday in terms of managing the tyres, but struggled a bit more with the car," Norris told Sky Sports F1.
"We made some changes but potentially just not in the right direction. I was a lot more confident yesterday than I was today so, yeah, just some things to review. But obviously a better qualifying, it's close."
Norris was also concerned that the changes will prevent him from challenging the Red Bulls and Ferraris in front of him on Sunday.
"We made some of those changes and I wish I could go back on them right now before tomorrow, but obviously we can't."
Mercedes were the other team bringing significant upgrades to Miami, but their poor start to the season took another turn for the worst on Friday as both Russell and Hamilton failed to make SQ3.
On this occasion, they did at least get two cars through to the final part of Qualifying for the first time in F1's three trips to Miami, but the fact they had burned all their new soft tyres by the time it came to the final runs in Q3 highlighted that they remain behind the teams ahead of them on Sunday's grid.
As they come to terms with what looks to set to be another uncompetitive season, in Hamilton's last campaign with the team before joining Ferrari, Russell appeared to suggest the fundamental design of the car is not right.
"Unfortunately, we probably overcompensated to solve the problems from last year and have gone from this extreme to that extreme and we need to sort of rewind and find ourselves in a halfway house," Russell told Sky Sports F1.
"When new upgrades take eight weeks to enter the car, you learn this problem with Race One, Race Two... you can't just bring an upgrade to the next race."
Sunday May 5
6.05pm: F1 Academy Race 2
7.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday Miami GP build-up*
9pm: The MIAMI GRAND PRIX*
11pm: Chequered Flag: Miami GP reaction*
Midnight: Ted's Notebook*
*also live on Sky Sports Main Event
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