Lewis Hamilton suffered his worst ever Formula 1 qualifying on US soil in another session to forget for Mercedes.
Prior to this weekend, he had never qualified outside of the top six in America. But the Brit will be starting 13th on the grid for Sunday's race in the Sunshine State, Sergio Perez took pole position thanks to a helping hand from Charles Leclerc.
The Ferrari racer span out and crashed his car with just 90 seconds left in the session. A red flag called an end to the session early which meant Perez will start the race on pole. Max Verstappen, who had not set a representative time after a wobble on his first attempt, has work to do from ninth on the grid.
An eventful Q1 saw several driver hampered by traffic ahead of them and almost saw Hamilton crash. He had to swerve to avoid hitting the back of the dawdling Kevin Magnussen and clipped the wall with his front wing as a result, putting his qualifying plan out of sync.
Both he and Russell were in the bottom five until the very death of Q1 until they both set a fast enough time to leap out of the danger zone. Their success was Lando Norris' loss as he could only go 16th fastest. Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll and Oscar Piastri were also out, while Fort Lauderdale boy Logan Sargeant went slowest in front of his home crowd.
Nyck de Vries will be pleased with a Q2 appearance but could not do better than 15th, one place behind Zhou Guanyu. Hamilton will start the race 13th after his shocking session, with Nico Hulkenberg and Alex Albon ahead of him on the sixth row.
But the drama was not done. Verstappen wanted to start Q3 strongly but made a mistake which meant he bailed out of his first hot lap. He waited in the garage to try one more at the end of the session, but the risk did not pay off due to Leclerc's crash.
The Monegasque was on for a strong lap but pushed his Ferrari too hard and he span off the track and into the Tec-pro. The session was not resumed which meant Verstappen never had the chance to set a fast lap and Perez starts the race with a strong advantage over his team-mate.
Full 2023 Miami Grand Prix qualifying results
- Sergio Perez – Red Bull
- Fernando Alonso – Aston Martin
- Carlos Sainz – Ferrari
- Kevin Magnussen – Haas
- Pierre Gasly – Alpine
- George Russell – Mercedes
- Charles Leclerc – Ferrari
- Esteban Ocon – Alpine
- Max Verstappen – Red Bull
- Valtteri Bottas – Alfa Romeo
- Alex Albon – Williams
- Nico Hulkenberg – Haas
- Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes
- Zhou Guanyu – Alfa Romeo
- Nyck de Vries – AlphaTauri
- Lando Norris – McLaren
- Yuki Tsunoda – AlphaTauri
- Lance Stroll – Aston Martin
- Oscar Piastri – McLaren
- Logan Sargeant – Williams
