By Alan Baldwin
MIAMI, May 2 (Reuters) – Formula One championship leader Kimi Antonelli sped to his third successive pole position on Saturday with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen joining the Mercedes youngster on the front row for what could be a wet and stormy Miami Grand Prix.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc qualified third fastest on a hot and steamy afternoon, with McLaren’s reigning world champion Lando Norris, winner of the earlier sprint, set to line up fourth.
Antonelli, 19, is chasing his third grand prix win in a row — and the team’s fourth in four — after triumphs in China and Japan made the Italian the youngest driver to lead the championship.
The pole was an immediate and forceful reply to being demoted to sixth in the sprint, the first race of the season in any format that Mercedes have not won.
It also put him up with Michael Schumacher and the late great Ayrton Senna as drivers who took their first three career poles in successive races.
“It’s been an amazing day to be on pole again,” he said. “It was a difficult start with the Sprint where it didn’t go our way but super happy with the recovery.
“It was a good quali, got a little bit excited in that last lap in Q3 but the first lap was good enough.”
VERSTAPPEN UPBEAT AFTER EARLY SEASON GLOOM
Antonelli secured provisional pole with a time of one minute 27.798, an impressive 0.345 quicker than Leclerc’s first effort and 0.383 faster than Verstappen.
At the end, the time stayed out of reach of the rest even if Verstappen cut the gap to 0.166 and Antonelli overcooked his final run and ran wide at turn one in a session also influenced by gusts of wind.
No driver has won in Miami from the front row in four previous editions, and a wet and stormy Sunday could throw up all kinds of chaos, but Verstappen — a two times winner at the Hard Rock Stadium — sounded his most upbeat in months.
“I feel more in control of the car again, and then I can push a bit more. Then the upgrades are working. To be on the front row is way better than I expected heading into this weekend,” said the Dutch driver.
“(We’ll) see what the weather will do tomorrow. But I’m already very happy with where we are. From here, there’s like light at the end of the tunnel and we can push on and try to close the gap further.”
Officials were meeting after qualifying to discuss possible changes to the schedule, with lightning a major concern.
ANTONELLI’S TEAMMATE RUSSELL LINES UP FIFTH
George Russell, Antonelli’s teammate and closest rival seven points adrift, qualified fifth with Ferrari’s seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton sixth.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, last year’s winner in Miami, will line up seventh on the grid at a circuit where overtaking is unlikely to be a major problem, particularly in the new rules era.
Argentine Franco Colapinto was a strong eighth fastest for Renault-owned Alpine with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly completing the top 10.
Antonelli was fastest in the first phase of qualifying, ahead of Leclerc, Verstappen and Norris, with Piastri squeaking through in 16th place.
“Oscar, we’re safely through,” his engineer told him over team radio, drawing the reply: “‘Safely’ is an ambitious word in that situation, I think.”
The second phase, in which Verstappen lapped fastest ahead of Antonelli, was slightly delayed after the brakes on Gabriel Bortoleto’s Audi caught fire and he pulled over on the back straight.
The Brazilian ended up bottom of the time sheets, behind Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez for newcomers Cadillac on that team’s first home race weekend.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Clare Fallon and Pritha Sarkar)
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