Antonelli beats both McLarens to pole in Miami with a STUNNING lap!

Andrea Kimi Antonelli got pole position for the Sprint race of the Miami Grand Prix, with Oscar Piastri placed in P2 as Lando Norris took P3 for the Saturday morning race.

At the start of the session, Jack Doohan claimed to have had to stop otherwise he would have collected Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls car, after what the Alpine driver felt was an unsafe release. Commenter Jolyon Palmer replied to Doohan’s comments with an emphatic: ‘Oh, come off it! Come off it!’.

Verstappen took advantage of both of the Ferrari drivers’ tows to set the fastest lap of the session so far, clearing the rest of the field by around 5 tenths, with Alex Albon being his closest pursuer.

Yuki Tsunoda could do little to get close to the Dutchman as he found himself more than 1.2 seconds adrift from teammate. It must be noted that the Japanese driver had reported issues with his helmet prior to his run.

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc took P2 and P3 behind Verstappen, but Lando Norris took over Verstappen’s P1 by a mere 0.063s. Oscar Piastri, championship leader, could only managed P3.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli then surprised the entire grid taking the leading spot in the session ahead of Norris by 0.032s. Teammate George Russell could only managed a time good enough for P5, 0.333s behind his rookie teammate.

As the session drew to a close, Yuki Tsunoda ran out of time and could not improve, falling in SQ1. Alex Albon made into the a top 3 dominated by Mercedes drivers, Russell and Antonelli.

As SQ2 started, Verstappen led ahead of Russell Leclerc, Albon and Hamilton. However, Antonelli once again confirmed his speed edging Verstappen out of the top 3. Norris took over the lead from the Italian rookie by a couple of tenths, only to be pipped by teammate Piastri by a similar margin.

Verstappen put in a better effort to beat Piastri’s leading time by a tenth, only to be demoted to P2 by Norris.

Leclerc improved to P4 as teammate Hamilton lingered in the danger zone 1.2 seconds oof the lead. Fernando Alonso made his way to P7, as Carlos Sainz abandoned his lap after locking up heavily and going off at Turn 11 marking an SQ2 exit for him. Hamilton put in a lap good enough for P6 less than a tenth behind his teammate.

Verstappen and Russell were the first to exit the pitlane as they tried to find their spot on the grid for the Miami Grand Prix Sprint race. The Briton beat Verstappen's time by two tenths, with a blistering lap of 1:26.7.

With 3 minutes left on the clock all the other drivers made their way to the track. Whilst Russell dove to the pits, Verstappen stayed out, revealing Red Bull Racing had a qualifying run plan similar to the one that gave them pole position last time out in Jeddah.

Hamilton took P2 ahead of Verstappen, but the Dutchman improved marginally so, to take P1, but that was before Antonelli took provisional pole ahead of the 4-time world champion, with Piastri slotting in ahead of Norris but behind Antonelli!