Miami - Sprint Qualifying

For the first time, the Grand Prix weekend in Miami is made up of a main race and a sprint race. The qualifying for the latter took place on Friday the 3rd and provided a lot of emotions for the fans and the drivers. As with all sprint qualis, it was divided into three sessions; a 12-minute one, a 10-minute one, and an 8-minute one. 

Leclerc was the first to drive out on track, eager to get some time in the car after his spin at the beginning of FP1 forced him to finish the session after only a couple of minutes. For a while, it looked like Verstappen would top the leaderboards of SQ1, but he ended up in 4th, after being overtaken by Norris, Piastri, and Alonso. Albon was on track to keep his record of outqualifying his teammate, but having a time deleted for exceeding track limits put him at P20, right underneath Sargeant. It was the first time the American ever qualified higher than his teammate. Gasly, Zhou, and Bottas made up the rest of the elimination zone. 

Perez was the first driver in SQ2 to set a time to beat. It didn't take long before Norris swooped in and improved upon it, placing himself at a comfortable P1. Overall, McLarens newly introduced updates worked to their advantage in SQ1 and SQ2, showing great promise for the races to come. Neither of the Mercedeses managed to set a good enough time to secure a spot in the third qualifying session. Aside from them, Ocon, Magnussen, and Tsunoda were knocked out. For the first time this season, Daniel Ricciardo advanced to SQ3. 

The last session started rather slowly as all ten drivers decided to go for an action-packed, one-shot qualifying. This meant there was no movement on track for the first four minutes of the short, eight-minute session. Verstappen finished the day with yet another pole position, even though he was disappointed by his performance and surprised that none of the other drivers managed to beat him. Leclerc will join him on the front row tomorrow, while in the second row, we'll see Perez and, quite surprisingly, Ricciardo.  The power of McLaren seemed to dwindle as the drivers ended up in P6 and P9. 

Order of the grid

1. Max Verstappen

2. Charles Leclerc

3. Sergio Perez

4. Daniel Ricciardo

5. Carlos Sainz

6. Oscar Piastri

7. Lance Stroll

8. Fernando Alonso

9. Lando Norris

10. Nico Hulkenberg

11. George Russel

12. Lewis Hamilton

13. Esteban Ocon

14. Kevin Magnussen

15. Yuki Tsunoda

16. Pierre Gasly

17. Zhou Guanyu

18. Valtteri Bottas

19. Logan Sargeant

20. Alex Albon