Oscar Piastri and his McLaren team have endured a Miami Grand Prix nightmare just hours after the team looked unstoppable.
Piastri and teammate Lando Norris blitzed the field in a 1-2 finish for McLaren in Saturday night’s sprint race, but the F1 world order was flipped on its head during Sunday morning’s qualifying.
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The Australian struggled throughout qualifying and was only 0.2 seconds away from an embarrassing Q1 exit when he finished P16.
He struggled again in Q3 where multiple mistakes in the final sector of the track saw him crash down to finish P7 after his final lap.
You can watch Piastri’s issue in the video player above
Piastri explained after Q3 that his car had some “unexpected” issues. Replays showed he was forced to overcorrect his entry to a late corner, costing him precious tenths of a second.
Norris was also well off the pace, finishing P4.
The top four was made up of drivers from four different teams.
Italian teenager Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes snatched pole with a stunning final flying lap which put him ahead of four-time world champion Max Verstappen.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished P3.
F1 commentators were left staggered by McLaren’s qualifying struggles.
F1 guru Martin Brundle said on Sky Sports it was “slightly bizarre” after the team’s dominance during the sprint race.
Sky Sports commentator David Croft said Piastri “lost it” when he had to pull out of his tight line into the turn that ruined his lap.
“McLaren will be thinking what happened there,” he said.
F1 analyst Karun Chandhok added: “Piastri went faster than anyone in sector two, but his sectors one and three weren’t good enough. It shows how quickly things have swung.”
Piastri described his team’s issue as “weird”.
He was more than 0.7 seconds behind Antonelli.
“It was all just a little bit random,” he said.
“Not the smoothest. Especially the last lap with Q3. I did what I thought was a good job through turns four, five and six, and then something weird happened and that’s why my middle sector was so good because I lost a whole bunch of time with a super clip when I didn’t expect it and then had more energy on the back straight so that’s why that looked so good.”
Norris said the result was a “reality check”.
Monday morning’s race is predicted to be run under wild, wet and windy conditions.
Antonelli, meanwhile, picked up his third career pole and his third in consecutive races, a feat that draws him alongside great former champions Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher in the record books.
His Mercedes teammate George Russell was fifth ahead of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton in the second Ferrari.
Alpine’s Franco Colapinto was eighth ahead of Isack Hadjar in the second Red Bull and the second Alpine of Pierre Gasly.
“It has been an amazing day for me to be on pole again,” said Antonelli.
“It was obviously a difficult sprint for me earlier, but I am super happy with this recovery. I got a little too excited in that last lap in Q3, but my first lap was good enough.
“I was so stressed because I was waiting for everyone to finish their laps, but it was good enough and now, hopefully, I will have a magic start tomorrow.”
Miami GP Qualifying Top 10
1) Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
2) Max Verstappen, Red Bull
3) Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
4) Lando Norris, McLaren
5) George Russell, Mercedes
6) Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
7) Oscar Piastri, McLaren
8) Franco Colapinto, Alpine
9) Isack Hadjar, Red Bull
10) Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Radio message drama as McLaren dominate sprint race
Oscar Piastri finished second in the sprint race as McLaren blew the rest of the grid away.
World champion Lando Norris won the race as McLaren continued its red hot form on the Florida track.
It comes as the team took a massive gamble in Sunday morning’s qualifying session with Piastri narrowly avoiding a disastrous exit in Q1.
Norris finished the 19-lap race at Miami International Autodrome 3.766 seconds clear of Piastri with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finishing third ahead of George Russell of Mercedes and four-time champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull.
Championship-leading Italian teenager Kimi Antonelli, the youngest man to lead the title race in F1 history, finished sixth after being given a five-second penalty that cost him a place for exceeding track limits excessively.
Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton was seventh for Ferrari ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who took the final single point in eighth.
Leclerc and Antonelli were involved in some wild wheel to wheel racing with the Monogesque left furious with his rival.
Leclerc was blunt when speaking with his engineers on team radio.
“Kimi is so bad on wheel to wheel,” he said.
“He moved under braking. It’s unbelievable.”
Leclerc said after the race he had been a bit to “harsh” with his words.
It was Norris’s fourth sprint win and McLaren’s second consecutive 1-2 in Miami, a triumph that team chief Andrea Stella dedicated to the memory of former F1 driver Alex Zanardi.
The win also marked the first race this year not won by Mercedes.
“Let’s do it all again,” said a confident Norris on team radio, adding, “It was a good race — and nice to be back on the top step,” after climbing from his car.
“A massive job by the team in bringing the upgrades — I know everyone is saying the same thing, but ours have really helped.
“It was hot and sweaty out there and I tried to balance between pushing and not making mistakes.”
Piastri said: “It was a good morning. Now let’s see what we can do in qualifying.”
Leclerc added: “The upgrades worked well. I’m satisfied with that, but unfortunately not with P3. I wish we were a bit higher.”
On a day of sizzling heat, the race was preceded by a minute’s silence in memory of Italian former F1 driver and Paralympic hand cycling champion Alex Zanardi, who died Friday aged 59.
Only 18 drivers formed the grid with Arvid Lindblad starting from the pit lane for Racing Bulls and Nico Hulkenberg absentafter his Audi suffered a blazing engine failure on a pre-grid lap.
Norris made a clean start from pole, but Antonelli once again made a poor start and was passed by Piastri with Leclerc squeezing into third ahead of the Italian teenager, Russell and Hamilton, who fought past Verstappen for sixth.
The champion looked dominant in the early laps and eased 1.9 seconds clear of McLaren teammate Piastri by lap five with Leclerc a further 1.6 adrift for Ferrari.
In a classic skirmish, Verstappen then lunged at Hamilton on Turn 11 and went off track as he took sixth place before being ordered to give the place back. He responded with a more routine pass at Turn 17 as Hamilton, like Leclerc, began to lose grip due to overheating tyres.
For Ferrari, it was proving to be a disappointing race despite their extensive upgrades, as the high temperatures took a toll, while McLaren appeared to have gained decisively with their new package.
Mercedes, expecting to take their upgrades package to Canada at the end of May, were unable to match Norris and Piastri’s pace, or match Leclerc, and the race settled into a high-speed procession with few real incidents.
One did break the sequence on the penultimate lap when Hadjar surged past Colapinto to take ninth and then defended stoutly, but he needed another pass to score a point.
— with AFP
