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The inaugural Miami GP qualifying was as interesting as it was promised to be, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz sealing the front row for Ferrari. Max Verstappen missed out on a front-row start due to an error he made in the last lap.
In a qualifying session that featured quite a few surprises, it was once again a familiar fight between Max Verstappen and the two Ferrari drivers for pole position, with the Ferraris stealing the front row from the Red Bull driver. The session also featured surprise Q2 and Q3 eliminations and some impressive performances as well.
In case you missed it, here's what happened!
Top 5 moments of the 2022 F1 Miami GP Qualifying
#1 Max Verstappen makes a rare mistake as Ferraris steal the front row
The battle for pole position came down to Max Verstappen and the two Ferrari drivers. While Max was the driver that set the fastest time in the first run, the top three drivers were seperated by a minuscule margin of just one tenth of a second. During the second run, while both the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz improved their times, Max Verstappen had to abandon his final lap due to a mistake he made in Turn 6.
As a result, both the Ferraris were able to seal the front row while Max had to settle for third.
#2 Mercedes remains humbled: This time around due to George Russell's performance
It was another pre-Q3 elimination for Mercedes. However, today, it was for Mr. Saturday George Russell, who was unable to set a proper time throughout the Q2 session despite multiple attempts, and as a result, ended up getting eliminated in Q2. He will start the Miami GP in P12 while his teammate Lewis Hamilton was able to reach Q3 and will start the Miami GP in P6.
The team had shown top performance in FP2 yesterday but could not replicate it today.
#3 Valtteri Bottas shines and outqualifies the Mercedes drivers
Valtteri Bottas is putting together an incredible season at Alfa Romeo. The car is good and the team has one great, reliable driver in Bottas and one rookie driver in Zhou Guanyu. While Zhou struggles to match his teammate, Bottas has been stringing together one impressive performance after the other, especially, when it comes to qualifying.
For the Miami GP, the Finnish driver outqualified his former teammate Lewis Hamilton and will start in P5.
#4 Surprise Q1 and Q2 eliminations
Qualifying was a bit of a surprise as multiple unexpected drivers and teams got knocked out. In Q1 it was the surprise elimination of Kevin Magnussen, whose teammate Mick Schumacher was able to reach Q2.
However, the Q2 elimination list was rather distinguished as George Russell, Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso suffered elimination, while one Aston Martin and two AlphaTauris made the cut to Q3.
#5 Esteban Ocon's FP3 crash forces him to miss qualifying
Esteban Ocon's car got damaged because of his unfortunate crash in FP3. As it turns out, the damage was too much for the car that suffered with a cracked chassis. As a result, Ocon was forced to miss the Miami GP and will start the race from the pit lane.
If today's qualifying session was any indicator, then tomorrow's race is sure to keep us on the edge of our seats.
