During Friday evening’s sprint qualifying sessions in Miami, Lando Norris was leading the pack in his upgraded McLaren. His time in the middle segment was even faster than Max Verstappen’s, who eventually topped the session.
But in the final sector, Norris lost about 0.8 seconds to Verstappen. This happened when they were using soft tires, different from the mediums they used earlier.
Norris’s last lap was tough. He struggled with oversteering at several turns, making it hard to keep up with Verstappen’s pace. When asked what went wrong, Norris admitted he pushed too hard and made some mistakes, especially at Turn 1.
Despite the setback, Norris remained positive about the upgrades on his car and the team’s work. However, he was disappointed with how things turned out in qualifying.
He hoped to make up some ground in the sprint race, as he believed his car’s pace was good. Oscar Piastri, Norris’s teammate, also found the session challenging. He wondered if the track conditions changed or if everyone overestimated the performance of the soft tires.
Piastri managed to secure sixth place on the grid for the sprint race. He acknowledged that Norris had a strong showing in the second segment of qualifying, which made the overall results a bit surprising.
Looking ahead to the sprint race, Piastri wasn’t too worried about tire degradation despite the hot weather. He anticipated an exciting race with cars possibly out of their usual positions, making for an unpredictable event.
