Qualifying races on the Miami track have ended with a double victory for Ferrari pilots. Charles Clecker and Carlos Sainc beat Red Bull Max Verstapen in the final attempt and will start the fifth leg of the F1 season from the front row on Sunday.
Q1:
Alpine driver Esteban Ocon did not take part in the qualification and had an accident during the third training session, and his car could not be repaired so quickly – the chassis was also damaged. Meanwhile, Kevin Magnusen and Guanju Zhou, who made it to the final flying circle, as well as Williams pilots Alex Albon and Nicolas Latifi, failed to win the first round.
Luis Hamilton was still in the relegation zone in the last minutes, had also made several mistakes, but took the fifth place in the last lap. Fernando Alonso was also in the danger zone for some time, and in one of the episodes he had “stroked” the track wall at the exit of the bend, but later secured entry into the next round. The fastest in the first qualification was Charles Lecler, followed by Max Verstapen, Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainc.
Q2:
The two-time F1 champion Alonso finished with the 11th result and George Russell did not succeed until the last round, despite his excellent performance in Friday’s training. Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Richtero and Mick Schumacher also finished the fight in the second part of the qualification.
The fastest were Lekler and Verstapen again, this time separated by only 0.072 seconds, the third result was Lando Norris, followed by Perez and Saints.
Q3:
In the decisive round, Verstapen reached a time of 1: 28,991 in the first attempt, but Lecher and Saints lost less than 0.1 second, while Peress was half a second behind and finished in fourth place.
The second attempt went well for the Ferrari drivers – Clecker knew how to improve the best lap time to 1: 28.796, but Saints lost 0.190 seconds, which was enough to take second place. In the last lap, Verstapen lost a grip in one of the bends, which cost a tenth of a second, so he fought for pole position was over and had to settle for third place. The winner of the previous stage, Saincam, lost only 0.005 seconds, but beat his teammate Peres.
Walter Botass and Hamilton will start in the third row, followed by Norris and Yuki Cunoda, and Lens Strols and Pierre Gazli in the top ten.
The race for the fifth leg of the season on the new Miami Track will take place on Sunday, starting at 22:30 Latvian time.
