Marko: Nobody had the tires under control
The Austrian explains in ORF: “The problem was, [die Reifen] Don’t overwhelm yourself in sector 1 so that you still have some grip in the third sector. But if you listened to the comments and compared the sector times, no one succeeded optimally.”
“I would say that Max found the right compromise,” he praises and adds: “Mercedes even switched to medium. I think that was an act of desperation. But that shows that no one had it under control and that Max then knew how to drive found the right compromise.”
“This compromise [aus] Finding speed and tire protection requires a lot of feeling and is also a bit of a matter of luck, because if you slip a little, it’s already over anyway. And Sergio just didn’t manage to do that the way Max did,” said Marko.
Verstappen: Car was a little better
The Dutchman has won everything so far this weekend, but he was never really satisfied. After the pole he reported: “I think we have definitely improved the car a little.”
“But I don’t know why it is: every year when we come here I find it extremely difficult to be very consistent with the car, to get a feel for the tires, a feel for a lap,” he ponders.
It was “incredibly hard” to get a complete group together in Miami. His lap in Q3 didn’t feel particularly great either, “but we’re on pole and that’s the most important thing,” said the world champion.
Leclerc: Tires collapsed in the end
The Monegasque reveals after P2: “In sectors 2 and 3 we started losing the tires and overheating them quite a bit. The first sector felt really good, but in sectors 2 and 3 we lost too much.”
“But the race tomorrow is long. This morning we have [im Sprint] “We showed good pace and I hope that we can put a little more pressure on Max tomorrow,” he explains aggressively.
“The DRS is very strong here, […] so we can’t lose it. But first of all, it’s about getting started. This morning we had a good one and tomorrow I will try to have an even better one,” said Leclerc.
Ricciardo: Felt like Norris yesterday
Still one of the heroes in the sprint, tomorrow he will start from last place. The Australian reports: “I didn’t have the necessary grip at the beginning of the lap. I really felt like Lando in Q3 yesterday.”
“I don’t know what he said after that, but I saw his lap and he was almost a second slower on the soft tire and you could see him starting to slide at the exit of Turn 1,” said Ricciardo .
That’s what happened to him today too. He ultimately finished qualifying in P18, and because of his grid penalty from China he went back to last place on the grid.
Open session ticker now!
Qualifying begins in ten minutes and we’ll move the action back to our session ticker. So here is a short break, after the end of the qualification we will continue with the votes for Saturday.
And if you want to know how you can watch Formula 1 in Miami in the live stream, then you will find out here!
No penalty for starting crash
Fernando Alonso clearly identified Lewis Hamilton as the culprit for the crash in Turn 1 earlier. The race stewards see it differently and have not issued any penalties.
They justify this by saying that the two Aston Martin drivers were the trigger and that Hamilton then made his “contribution” to the chaos.
However, in the opinion of the race stewards, no driver was solely responsible for the situation – not even Hamilton. Here is the reasoning in full:
“From the video evidence, it appeared that there were at least three collisions that occurred ? the first between Cars 14 & 18 and then between Car 44 and Car 14 and finally between Car 18 and Car 4.”
“While it appeared to us that the incidents began with Cars 14 & 18, the sudden and fast arrival of Car 44 contributed to the various collisions.”
“However, we were not able to identify one or more drivers wholly or predominantly to blame for the various collisions or any one of them.”
“Also keeping in mind that this was in Turn 1 of Lap 1 where greater latitude is given to drivers for incidents, we took no further action.”
Ricciardo with a handicap
A little reminder: The Australian already received a grid penalty at the last race in China. He has to move back three positions on the starting grid tomorrow.
Let’s keep that in mind. Even if he makes it into Q3 straight away, that doesn’t automatically mean that he will start from the top 10 tomorrow.