The long distance GP on the different city track of Miami will have a front row identical to that of the Sprint race
It doesn’t escape Max Verstappen pole position for the Miami Grand Prix: one minute, 27 seconds and 241 for the Dutchman who – as for the Sprint – will have alongside him on the front row Charles Leclerc with Ferrari. First row “copy and paste” in short, compared to the Sprint which ended not even a handful of hours earlier. The Monegasque closed 141 thousandths behind SuperMax, with his seventh consecutive pole. Second row for the other Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz which is 214 thousandths behind the number one Red Bull but beats it by five thousandths Sergio Perez’s “eleven”.. Third row full orange (or rather, papaya) for Lando Norris’ two McLarens (+0.353) and Oscar Piastri (+0.434) and fourth row also in one color, in this case Mercedes silver: on the inside George Russell (+0.826), on the outside Lewis Hamilton, separated from each other by forty thousandths of a second. An unmissable opportunity to hunt for very important points for Haas and VISA Cash App RB is the one they deserve Nico Hulkenberg (+0.905) and Yuki Tsunoda (+0.951) which form a fifth row… boarding.
Charles Leclerc tried until the end to cast doubt on Verstappen’s pole position: a final freediving time attack for the Monegasque who left nothing on the asphalt in an attempt to change places on the front row with his Dutch rival. Nothing to do: Max signed the pole, underlining several times (over the radio during practice and then out of the Red Bull in favor of microphones) the imperfect behavior of his car: a sort of message (not even very encrypted) to sailors, in the sense of someone who has been forced to chase for a long time. In other words: don’t get your hopes up too much. The other Ferrari driver will also be attempting to attack power right from the start of the GP Sainz raising the level of his game compared to the Sprint qualifications, with a third time that was significantly better than fifth on the Sprint grid. Pardoned by the Race Direction for a more than suspicious impediment against Russell at the end of the home straight, the Madrilenian must precede Perez (who leaves next to him) at the traffic lights and immediately after at the exit of curve one give Leclerc support in working alongside Verstappen and in the (double) Ferrari podium mission, not necessarily on the two “contour” steps.
The second half of the starting line-up “moves” from sixth row formed by Lance Stroll with Aston Martin (best of the rest, in the sense of those excluded from Q3) and the French Pierre Gasly (under investigation for an infringement in the pit lane) with an Alpine at least convalescent compared to the extremely disappointing first five performances of the season. His compatriot and teammate Esteban Ocon opens the seventh row, completed by Alexander Albon with Williams powered by Mercedes.
From inside the eighth row at the start a Fernando Alonso so far decidedly subdued between the curves of Miami (also compared to teammate Stroll), flanked by Valtteri Bottas with the “best” of the Strike Saubers. Long faces in the ninth and penultimate row: we are talking about the local boy Logan Sargeant (Williams) and of Daniel Ricciardo who with the VISA Cash App RB incredibly does not repeat his performances in the Sprint format (fourth at the start and equally fourth in front of the checkered flag). The multiple penalized player starts from the tenth and last row (again from the Sprint of a few hours earlier) Kevin Magnussen with Haas Ferrari and Guanyu Zhou with the second Strike Sauber, the Chinese like Gasly is under investigation due to an infringement in the pit lane.
