McLaren left it late, flirted with trouble, and still walked away with the headline time as Sprint Qualifying got underway at the Miami International Autodrome on Friday afternoon.
In a session that began with Ferrari looking entirely too comfortable, it was Lando Norris who ended SQ1 on top with a 1:28.723, just 0.010s clear of Charles Leclerc. Oscar Piastri backed it up in third, though nearly half a second adrift, as McLaren’s pace finally surfaced when it mattered — after spending much of the run teetering around the cut line while others banked safer early laps.
For a while, it looked like Ferrari had stamped its authority. Leclerc went three-and-a-half tenths clear of Lewis Hamilton in the early exchanges, giving the paddock its first proper glimpse of the Scuderia’s one-lap intent in the Miami heat. Then Kimi Antonelli split the red cars to briefly make it a Ferrari-Mercedes-Ferrari top three and, for Italian fans, an especially tasty-looking order. That didn’t last once the track evolved and the late runners played their hands, but it was a reminder that Ferrari’s baseline is strong here — and that Hamilton isn’t far from Leclerc even when the Monegasque hits early.
The bigger story beneath the Norris headline is how messy SQ1 got for those who tried to control it rather than simply attack it. Both McLarens were sitting uncomfortably low with three minutes to go, having delayed their runs. Add Franco Colapinto, Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson also hovering in the danger zone and it had the familiar feel of a modern qualifying segment: one yellow flag, one deleted lap, one ill-timed traffic moment and your weekend narrative changes completely.
Miami nearly delivered that twist when Lance Stroll made a mistake at the penultimate corner, briefly triggering yellow flags as he gathered up his Aston Martin. It was the kind of interruption that doesn’t always ruin a session, but it forces everyone behind to make split-second decisions about whether to continue pushing or abort. Stroll’s afternoon effectively ended there — he didn’t return to the track — and Aston Martin’s SQ1 unravelled fast.
Fernando Alonso didn’t find any way out either. A deleted lap put him within 107% of the fastest time, although even that would still have left him last. Instead, both Aston Martins were dumped out at the first hurdle, Alonso classified 21st and Stroll 22nd with no time. It’s a brutal look on a timing screen in a sprint weekend where there’s less room to reset the tone.
At the front, the final minutes told a different story. Norris vaulted from the drop zone to P1, Piastri followed him up the order, and suddenly McLaren’s earlier risk looked like confidence rather than complacency. Leclerc stayed right on Norris’s gearbox — a hundredth is effectively nothing — while Hamilton settled for fourth, 0.532s off, in a group that feels close enough to reshuffle quickly once the segments tighten.
Antonelli kept a very respectable fifth for Mercedes, just behind Hamilton, with George Russell sixth. Max Verstappen, meanwhile, sat seventh — and the more interesting detail is that his time lent credibility to the notion that Red Bull’s earlier pace was real rather than flattering. He slotted in behind Russell and ahead of Pierre Gasly, who continued a solid start to the weekend for Alpine in eighth, nearly four-tenths behind Verstappen.
Behind them, Nico Hulkenberg put Audi ninth with Isack Hadjar tenth for Red Bull, the sort of quietly efficient SQ1 job that keeps a sprint weekend alive. Colapinto followed in 11th, then Gabriel Bortoleto in the second Audi, with Oliver Bearman taking Haas to 13th. Lindblad’s Racing Bulls effort in 14th was enough to survive, with Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon dragging Williams through in 15th and 16th — separated by just 0.001s.
Those margins mattered, because the eliminations were unforgiving. Lawson went out 17th, Esteban Ocon 18th, Sergio Perez 19th for Cadillac and Valtteri Bottas 20th in the second Cadillac. With Alonso and Stroll also out, the list had a bit of everything: a top team’s satellite driver, an experienced operator in Ocon, a high-profile name in Alonso, and a pair of cars from a brand-new outfit still finding its feet.
Sprint Qualifying has a habit of setting a mood more than it sets a weekend, but Miami’s opening segment already had its themes: Ferrari is properly in the fight, McLaren can look scruffy and still land the punch, and Aston Martin’s Friday has gone from “work to do” to “damage limitation” in the space of a few minutes.
SQ1 results: Norris led Leclerc, Piastri, Hamilton, Antonelli, Russell, Verstappen, Gasly, Hulkenberg and Hadjar. Eliminated: Lawson, Ocon, Perez, Bottas, Alonso and Stroll.
