First in SQ1, first in SQ2, only ninth in SQ3. McLaren seemed to be one of the big favorites in the fight for the front row in the Sprint Qualifying in Miami, but at the decisive moment they lacked the necessary leap forward to turn the potential into an important result.
The Woking team in fact presented itself on American soil with a substantial package of innovations which, according to the riders, immediately provided its benefits. An evolution that the MCL38 needed to make up for the fact that the engineers were unable to complete the development planned for the winter.
Clearly it is not a swallow that makes a spring, but it is true that at the end of qualifying at McLaren there are really a lot of regrets, because the sixth and ninth positions on the sprint starting grid do not seem to reflect the true potential of the updated MCL38.
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
After finishing the first two heats at the top, albeit completed on the medium compound tires as per the regulations, in SQ3 we moved on to the soft ones, but that’s where something didn’t work. The ignition of the softer compound proved to be more complicated than expected and the car began to suffer from oversteer phenomena. Suffice it to say that in the first sector Norris lapped around 7 tenths slower than his best reference in qualifying, also thanks to some personal errors, while the difference in the second split time was reduced to around three tenths.
All this proved sufficient to accumulate an eight-tenths delay from Max Verstappen’s Red Bull in just two sectors, impossible to close even with the best partial in the final stretch of the track. When asked what went wrong, Norris responded very bluntly: “I pushed too hard, it’s simple.”
The car was excellent, I made a couple of mistakes in Turn 1, from there everything was more complicated. It’s a shame because the team did a great job, the updates are working as we wanted, so I’m happy with everything, except for one thing [la sua prestazione in qualifica]”.
By observing the telemetry references between his best lap in SQ2, which was also sufficient to conquer pole position, and that in SQ3, it can be seen that a large part of the deficit derives from the difference in grip in the fast corners of the first sector.
Norris telemetry comparison between SQ2 and SQ3 in Miami in Sprint Qualifying
Photo by: Gianluca D’Alessandro
Norris underlined that he hopes to gain positions from ninth on the starting grid for the Miami sprint, as he believes McLaren’s pace is very good despite the little data available in FP1. “I think we can recover, our pace was good, probably one of the fastest. Today was disappointing, but I will try to do my best tomorrow.”
Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren, was also on the same wavelength and blamed today’s poor performance on tire preparation: “We weren’t able to get the soft to work on both cars, our preparation wasn’t correct, so we are a little disappointed if we compare with Q1 and Q2. But I think we will qualify better tomorrow and we have a good race pace.”
Even the other MCL38, although equipped with only part of the upgrade package introduced in Miami, did not impress, with Piastri unable to go beyond the sixth place finish, about half a second from the top. Nonetheless, the Australian still said he was satisfied with the result, because he believes that the sixth place finish is an excellent starting point given a less than exciting lap.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
“It was a difficult session for everyone. I don’t know if the track has changed, we all thought that with the soft we would have done better. My lap was horrible but I still finished in sixth place, so I think everyone had a difficult Q3. Lando completed the fastest lap of the entire qualifying in SQ2 on a medium tyre. Strange day, but sixth position is good”
On a muggy weekend like the one in Miami, Piastri is not at all worried that McLaren may encounter tire degradation problems. “It will be tough for everyone, I think, but the tires seem to be surviving well. I’m not too worried, but it could be an exciting sprint. Some cars are out of position. Nobody has found much consistency, so tomorrow will be exciting,” explained the Australian .
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