Charles Leclerc on pole, front row lock out for Ferrari

Ferrari has locked out the front row of the grid with Charles Leclerc claiming pole position for the Miami Grand Prix. 

The Red Bull cars of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez sat at the top of the timesheets with 10 minutes remaining in Q1 with Verstappen sitting half a second clear of his teammate, and George Russell close behind. 

Soon after the Ferrari’s of Leclerc and Carlos Sainz jumped to first and second respectively before Verstappen improved his time to go to second. 

Esteban Ocon sat out qualifying after a crash in FP3, with his team finding a crack in the chassis of his Alpine car between the sessions. 

The damage will see Orcon use the spare Alpine car for tomorrow’s race. 

Leclerc continued to put together strong lap times in Q2 setting a 1.29.30 minute lap to sit 0.072 ahead of Verstappen in second. 

Russell struggled on his first run in Q2 not putting together a representative lap time until late in the session, though he would ultimately get bumped out missing Q3, Russell will start from 12th in the race. 

Fernando Alonso also missed out on advancing to the next session, set to start 11th, with a time that was just 0.032 seconds off Pierre Gasly’s in 10th. 

Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Riccardo, and Mick Schumacher will start 13th, 14th and 15th. 

Verstappen was the first driver to set a lap under the 1.29-minute mark with a 1.28.991 lap to sit at the top of the ladder after the first run in Q3, sitting 0.064 ahead of Leclerc, with Sainz also less than a tenth off the time set by Verstappen. 

Perez sat fourth about half a second off the time set by his teammate, with Bottas in fifth with five minutes remaining. 

Leclerc improved his time on the final run with teammate Sainz jumping up to second after his final lap, putting Verstappen back to third. 

The Red Bull driver didn’t set a time on his final run after running wide on his lap, leaving him to start from the second row of the grid alongside teammate Perez. 

Bottas will start from fifth alongside Hamilton, Gasly and Norris are set to start from the fourth row of the grid, with Yuki Tsunoda and Lance Stroll rounding out the top ten.

Miami Grand Prix Qualifying:

_{Main image: Ferrari}