Wolff fears McLaren will be dominant in hot conditions after strong qualifying showing from Mercedes

F1 Grand Prix, GP Miami, Miami

Following a strong sprint and qualifying day at the Miami International Autodrome, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has offered his prospects regarding today's Miami Grand Prix, suggesting that McLaren might display a dominant performance in hot conditions.

Having become the 14th Italian to set the fastest lap in a grid-deciding session, Andrea Kimi Antonelli endured a slow getaway from the grid, having suffered some wheelspin. As a result, he found Oscar Piastri alongside, and he slightly ran off the track, and dropped to fourth.

He then collided with Max Verstappen, and although he was able to continue, he was left without any points in the sprint. He then displayed a strong performance in the main qualifying session to wound up third, 0.002s off the front row.

His team-mate George Russell stayed out of trouble to finish fifth in the Miami F1 Sprint, but he slightly struggled in qualifying, ending up fifth after complaining about grip at the front axle of his W16.

Reflecting on Mercedes' Saturday in Miami, the Brackley-based outfit's chief Toto Wolff insisted that neither Russell nor Antonelli had a perfect lap in the closing stages of the main qualifying which means that they could have ended up even higher on the grid.

"We need to be pleased with the performances we put in during Qualifying today. Both drivers didn't have the perfect laps, so we could hypothetically talk about starting higher up on the grid; Kimi had a small mistake at turn one and George had a snap of oversteer through turn seven.

"Nevertheless, we know it was going to be a tough ask to challenge the McLarens and Verstappen so, even though we're never going to be satisfied with P3 and P5, we can look forward to Sunday.

"The weather forecast for the race is mixed and we wouldn't be unhappy with a few rain showers tomorrow. Our race pace isn't as strong as the McLarens in the hotter conditions, and both Verstappen and the Ferraris have shown in recent races how quick they can be in similar circumstances.

"It is an area we are working hard to improve on and hopefully we can take a step forward in the upcoming races. For now, we will race hard tomorrow and see what we can do from the second and third rows of the grid."

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin confirmed that Russell has been battling with his front tyres all across the weekend, with the British racer having found it difficult to keep the front Pirellis in their right operating window.

"The Sprint this morning was frustrating. Kimi had a bit of wheel spin off the line, battled for position with Piastri and ultimately dropped to P4. After that, it was all about the transition to the dry tyres.

"We hesitated and went one lap later than others but would have still been in a decent position had Verstappen not been unsafely released into Kimi’s path. He reacted well to avoid anyone getting hurt but ultimately it finished his race as he had to drive around and stop the next lap. George lost a bit of race time by stopping the lap after but that was inevitable.

Shovlin continued: "It would have been good to see where we performed if we had more racing in the dry, but that will wait until tomorrow. We still scored some useful points, but it could have been a lot better.

"We made a few small changes to the car going into Qualifying. The track seemed a bit more difficult today, with the drivers finding it harder to know where to position the tyre temperatures. Generally, the tyres were not biting as well as they had yesterday for us. It wasn't an easy route through to Q3, but we got both cars there with two new sets of Soft tyres.

"Neither driver got perfect laps; both could have found a bit more and the gaps to pole position were not large. Starting P3 and P5 still gives us the opportunity for a good result tomorrow and, with threat of rain, anything can happen."