Antonelli Snatches Maiden Pole for 2025 Miami Sprint – Sport Grill

Andrea Kimi Antonelli snatched his maiden F1 Sprint Pole for the 2025 Miami Sprint in a dramatic climax to Sprint Qualifying. 

Antonelli snatched his first pole position for any F1 race with a stunning final lap to pip championship leader, Oscar Piastri by 0.045 seconds, whilst Lando Norris qualified third ahead of Max Verstappen who became a father for the first time this week.

Practice

Championship leader, Piastri was first on track and set 1m 30.059 as the initial benchmark but Verstappen lowered the fastest lap to 1m 29.808 in the fifth minute, which Mercedes’ George Russell soon bettered by 0.010s just two minutes later.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Williams’ Carlos Sainz soon went even quicker, before Verstappen reclaimed the quickest lap time with 1m 28.634 but Russell went even quicker twice to lower the benchmark to 1m 28.058 come the 18th minute.

Russell’s time wasn’t beaten by the half-hour mark as his teammate, Antonelli found himself second ahead of Sainz, Piastri and Norris, whilst Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson were the only drivers to run the hard tyre rather than medium tyres in their opening stints.

Many drivers left the soft-tyre qualifying simulations until the final ten minutes but the session came to a premature end with four minutes left, after Haas’ Oliver Bearman spun out at Turn 12 after he got on the kerb.

As a consequence of Bearman’s spin, not everyone got a soft-tyre lap in which meant that Piastri topped the session with 1m 27.128 ahead of Leclerc and Verstappen.

Sprint Qualifying

SQ1

Tsunoda was first on track and set 1m 29.246 as the initial benchmark but Verstappen quickly displaced him with 1m 27.943, until Norris displaced him by 0.063s although it was Antonelli who topped the first set of fliers with 1m 27.858 in the seventh minute as everyone ran the medium tyre.

Doohan, Tsunoda, Bortoleto and Bearman found themselves in the bottom five alongside Hadjar whose lap time was deleted due to exceeding track limits.

At the checkered flag, Tsunoda and Bearman missed the line to start their final laps and found themselves qualified 18th and 20th respectively sandwiched by Bortoleto who will start 19th, whilst Doohan and Stroll will line up 17th and 16th on the grid.

Russell topped the segment on his final flier with 1m 27.688 to beat Antonelli’s time by 0.170s.

SQ2

Verstappen was the first driver to set a benchmark time in this segment of 1m 27.729 in the fourth minute, but Antonelli beat the Dutchman’s lap by 0.002s to go fastest.

Norris then displaced the Italian but Piastri put himself top with 1m 27.354 whilst Sainz, Ocon, Gasly, Hadjar, Alonso, Hulkenberg and Lawson hadn’t set lap times at the half-way mark.

At the checkered flag, Hulkenberg qualified 11th ahead of Ocon, Gasly and Lawson whilst Sainz will line up 15th after he locked up at Turn 12 on his sole flier.

Norris topped SQ2 with 1m 27.109 as everyone once again ran the medium tyre.

SQ3

Verstappen was first out on track as everyone switched to the soft tyre for the final segment of Sprint Qualifying and set 1m 27.070, yet Russell found 0.279s to go quickest with 1m 26.791 whilst everyone else remained in the pit lane in the opening four minutes of the segment.

Albon eventually led the rest of the top ten out with just under three minutes left on the clock and as the checkered flag fell, Antonelli claimed his first Sprint Pole with a shock 1m 26.482 on his first trip to Miami, which made him the youngest pole sitter across all F1 race formats.

Piastri qualified second and 0.045s down on the Italian whilst Norris starts third ahead of Verstappen, Russell, Leclerc, Hamilton, Albon, Hadjar and Alonso.