Verstappen takes pole in Miami after sprint race win

AFP | Miami

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen continued his total domination of Formula One, taking pole position for the Miami Grand Prix after clinching the sprint race earlier Saturday.

The reigning world champion and championship leader, who has won four out of five Grand Prix races this season, clinched his seventh straight pole position with another dominant drive.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, whose fastest lap was 0.141 seconds behind Verstappen, will start second with his teammate Carlos Sainz in third place and Verstappen’s Red Bull partner Sergio Perez fourth.

Three-time world champion Verstappen has won both the previous Miami Grand Prix races but never from pole and he said he still found qualifying tricky.

“Every single year that we come here, I find it extremely difficult to be very consistent with the car feeling, the tyre feeling over one lap,” he said.

“It’s not the single most enjoyable lap of my career just because of how slippery it is.

You are not very confident on the lap but we are on pole and of course that is the most important thing.”

Leclerc said it had been hard to manage the tyres, with overheating a problem, but said his performance in the sprint race gave him encouragement.

“That’s where we lost a little bit of time, however the race is long tomorrow, we showed good pace this morning (in the sprint race) and I hope we can put Max under a bit more pressure,” he said.