The Friday in F1 Miami GP was hectic in the sprint weekend and qualifying saw interesting results where pole-sitter was surprised to be P1.
It wasn’t the cleanest of Friday in F1 Miami GP sprint weekend as the lone practice session had too many work to be done for the drivers. An early red flag for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc only added to the workload, not only hurting the Monegasque but others too.
But Leclerc fought back in sprint qualifying to put his car on the front row, finally finding some pace in F1 qualifying after recent struggles. His teammate Carlos Sainz didn’t manage to put a lap together, much like others in the Top 10.
Even the pole-sitter Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was surprised to take F1 sprint pole. He struggled throughout the sessions and expected someone else to snatch it, but managed to put in a lap at the right time when others faltered.
His teammate Sergio Perez had a rough one in SQ3 but still managed to be third. Among the teams that eventually ended up outside the Top 5 despite showing pace were McLaren, Aston Martin and Mercedes – the latter did not even break into the Top 10.
While Oscar Piastri felt okay with his lap to be sixth, Lando Norris had overheating tyres to be only ninth behind Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso. The Aston Martin expected a bit more while the Mercedes pair were realistic about where they ended up.
Verstappen: “To be honest with you, it felt pretty terrible. I don’t know, maybe that last session it was just incredibly difficult to get the tyres to work. Already in SQ2 I didn’t feel great. In SQ3, I think it just felt similar for me, I didn’t really improve a lot on the soft, but somehow we were first. Of course, I’ll happily take it, but it didn’t really feel enjoyable out there to drive for whatever reason. In practice, it felt really, really nice, I was very comfortable and confident, but in qualifying not so much. After practice I was quite confident that we could fight for pole, then in qualifying it didn’t really look like that, but somehow we still ended up in first. I don’t know what happened to the other cars in the last lap.”
Leclerc: “Yeah, I am. I am because qualifying was a weak point for two races in a row at one point. China was a little bit better but we didn’t have the car to actually show that. [It’s come] on such a difficult weekend because obviously I did one lap in FP1, so I had to go in quali and go straight away flat-out. We are allowed to only use one set of tyres in SQ1 so it was very, very tricky, but straight away I felt the feeling, and the hard work that I’ve done earlier in the season to try and put the tyres in the right window has paid off. So I’m happy, because there are so many talks now and you are as good as your last race in this sport. Obviously when you have two races in a row where you are bad in qualifying, which I haven’t done a great job in, people start to talk, so it’s good to stop that. But now obviously I need to work in the consistency and try to stay at that level, put those tyres consistently in the right window as I’ve done in the past. I did one lap, so I have no idea about our race pace, but I really hope we can have a good Sprint and have a good race pace to have hopes for the win on Sunday.”
Hamilton: “The car felt really good in SQ1, and then SQ2 it didn’t feel terrible, it’s just we were seven-tenths off – that’s just I think the pace of our car. I think the Sprint race is going to be tough. We’re starting in 12th, so I don’t expect a huge amount from there to be honest. It’s not an easy circuit to overtake on or to follow other cars, so just trying to step into the points somehow if we can. No, this weekend we’ve just been… no more experiments, just trying to make the car work. I feel like we extracted everything from the car, and that’s just our pace. We just have to accept it for the moment that we’re seven-tenths off.”
Norris: “The car was feeling very good throughout the session. In SQ3 we just seemed to overheat the tyres in the first sector which compromised the rest of the lap, but the team have done a good job getting the upgrades here and they are working. I’m happy with the progress we’ve made. The pace of the car is very good, let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”
Alonso: “There was not a lot of grip to be found on track today so the conditions were quite tricky for Sprint Qualifying. But it was the same for everybody and we managed to get both cars into Q3 which was the target for today. We haven’t done a lot of running on track, so it’s a little unknown heading into the Sprint tomorrow. We’ll see what we can do and try to have some fun.”
While there was some gloom in the backend of the Top 10, there was joy for Visa Cash App RB’s Daniel Ricciardo, who set a solid lap to be fourth. Despite the brush against the wall in SQ2, the Australian made it in SQ3 and secured a second row finish.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda left it late in SQ2 and had his lap deleted to add to his misery. Even at Haas, Nico Hulkenberg was pleased to get into the Top 10, while Kevin Magnussen rued the minor mistake his made much like Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.
The Frenchman did not make the SQ2 cut after missing it by 0.013s, but teammate Esteban Ocon did it. But neither of the Stake F1 Team and Williams drivers make the cut in SQ2, with Alexander Albon getting his lap deleted to be last.
Ricciardo: “I feel obviously really good about it. It was just a good session. SQ1, run one, the first lap, I actually made a mistake, so we were putting ourselves under a bit of pressure, but I found a good lap, then SQ2 I think we just kind of built up from there. I think all of us… I was speaking to Max just now and he said he was quite surprised to be P1 with his lap, and I was saying with mine I was surprised to be P4. [With] the soft tyre, I expected a bit more from it, but it didn’t really give that much more than the medium, so we were expecting everyone to go a lot quicker and they didn’t. The second row is awesome. I touched the wall both laps as well. I told the team I was definitely trying to get everything out of it! I don’t know if that made me quicker or not but we were going for it and I had some comfort in the car. I’d love to be more than eighth, for sure. I’d love to get a few points from it. We’ll see what happens, but just being… obviously I experienced it in Mexico, starting at the front is just a lot nicer than being 12th, 13th. I say that from… obviously it’s logical, but just from a Turn 1, first lap, being involved in a bit of chaos, staying a bit cleaner at the front is always like a breath of fresh air. I’m sure the second row will help our cause in getting some points.”
Hulkenberg: “This morning I didn’t feel good in the car at all, but sometimes it takes a moment, and we managed to clean up the set-up for this afternoon. It’s tricky as you know with the Sprint you only get one practice session, and we got a little bit lucky in SQ1 as I was on the verge of going out as it wasn’t very clean on my side. In SQ2, it was very clean and well executed. In SQ3, we ran only a used set of softs so we have more for tomorrow and Sunday but it was tight out there.”
Ocon: “It is positive that we progressed to the second part of Sprint Qualifying, but it is obviously disappointing to be so close and miss out on the top-10 by only half a tenth. It is also small encouraging signs that the gap is reducing. I was happy with the first lap in SQ2 and how the car felt, and the grip increased through the lap. But I pushed too hard on the second lap and struggled with the tyres towards the end. I was up in the first sector but could not hold it over the lap, which is also a good learning for Qualifying for the Grand Prix tomorrow. There are a few things we can work on and fix overnight and try to move forward in the Sprint and make that next step in Qualifying.
Bottas: “Today has been a rather challenging day in the office. We made big changes in terms of balance after the practice session, and the car felt quite different; there has been somewhat of a track reset as well, and it felt like we were missing some grip. On top of that, we unfortunately got caught in traffic during my push lap. I went off track after a close encounter with a McLaren, and the tyres never really recovered their temperature after that. Tomorrow’s starting positions for the Sprint are definitely not ideal; there is still a lot we can learn about the car, though, and as it’s still early in the weekend, we can try and turn this around for Sunday’s main event.”
Albon: “We tend to struggle a little in Sprint Qualifying sessions when using the harder compounds; we also changed quite a bit between FP1 and Qualifying and unfortunately, the gamble didn’t pay off. The things we changed were in the right direction, including a few aero pieces but they weren’t quite what we expected and ultimately, we over-compromised. We’ll wait until the Sprint race, then change the car setup and hopefully that will improve things.”
Here’s how FP1 in F1 Miami GP panned out
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