Formula One F1 - Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates - December 12, 2021 Red Bull's Max Verstappen celebrates winning the race and the world championship REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
In Miami Grand Prix Qualifying, Max Verstappen defeated Charles Leclerc’s challenge to win his seventh consecutive Formula 1 pole position.
The top 10 struggled to improve in the last laps of the session, just as they had on Friday in the Sprint Qualifying, but Red Bull’s Verstappen had done enough with a time of 1:27.241 on his first flying lap in Q3.
Verstappen continued his career-best run of pole positions to close in on Ayrton Senna’s all-time record of eight, and his lead in the world championship now stands at 27 points after he won the Sprint earlier on Saturday.
Verstappen is in a good position to win his fifth race of the season and go after a fourth consecutive drivers’ championship, but Leclerc’s Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz may have an advantage over the other Red Bull driver, Sergio Perez, on Sunday because he finished third.
In his upgraded McLaren, Lando Norris finished fifth, ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, drivers of Mercedes, finished seventh and eighth, respectively.
After both Aston Martins were unexpectedly eliminated in the second qualifying round, Nico Hulkenberg of Haas and Yuki Tsunoda of RB completed the top ten. Fernando Alonso finished in 15th place.
Daniel Ricciardo, Tsunoda’s RB teammate, qualified 18th in the Sprint, failing to improve on his strong fourth place finish. He will start last because of a three-place grid penalty he received after an incident in the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago.
