ANALYSIS: Where did Piastri lose pole position in Miami?
Mercedes' Italian sensation Andrea Kimi Antonelli secured his maiden F1 pole position in yesterday's sprint qualifying at the Miami Grand Prix. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo explains where the Bologna-born beat his closest rival, championship rival Oscar Piastri.
Having shown promising pace in the sole practice session, Andrea Kimi Antonelli continued to impress in qualifying. The 18-year-old looked quick on the mediums in SQ1 and SQ2 before he he went on to beat McLaren's Oscar Piastri, the championship leader, by 0.045 seconds.
Lando Norris appeared to be the quicker McLaren driver in qualifying, but he ended up third, a place behind his team mate Piastri. Reigning champion Max Verstappen elected to complete two laps in the final stage of the sprint qualifying, and he was right as his second lap was the quicker one, but it was still only enough for P4 on the grid.
But where did Antonelli beat the quicker McLaren driver? Piastri and Antonelli were neck and neck across the opening two sectors. The Australian posted a 28.648s in the opening sector while Antonelli was just 20 thousands of a second slower.
The middle part of the Miami International Autodrome saw the two drivers set similar sector times again. The McLaren man was slightly quicker again, but the Italian's deficit was only 42 thousands of a second.
Having fractionally gone quicker than Antonelli through the opening two sectors, Piastri started the last sector with an advantage of 62 thousands of a second.
However, the Bologna-born driver went 107 thousands of a second faster in the last part of the track to end up 0.045s ahead across the finish line.
The telemetry data provided by F1DataAnalysis shows where Piastri lost out on the pole position. As mentioned, the Melbourne-born driver approached the final sector with an advantage of 62 thousands of a second which he maintained down the long back straight.
However, he suffered a lock-up into Turn 17 which saw him exit the last "real" corner suboptimal, enabling Antonelli to sneak ahead through the last metres of the lap.
On the back of hard-fought qualifying session, Piastri conceded that he missed out on pole due to his slight mistake in the last part of the Miami International Autodrome.
"I had a lock-up into the last corner, which I think was probably where pole went away. P2 is still a good result, we can still fight from there in the sprint tomorrow.
"All in all, pretty happy. I think we've got a bit more pace to unlock, hopefully. I'm feeling positive still and I'll be trying to make up a spot tomorrow in the sprint before we get stuck into where the big points are."
