The Sprint Qualifying session at the 2026 Miami Grand Prix produced a much more balanced grid in the fight for the leading positions compared to what had been seen in the opening three weekends of the season. Ferrari was arguably the team that suffered the most from this shift in competitiveness, with McLaren returning to the front and Mercedes confirming its strong form thanks to Kimi Antonelli. Charles Leclerc limited the damage with the fourth fastest time, a position from which it is still possible to maximise the strong launch potential of the SF-26 at the start, but the signals coming from Friday in Florida require careful analysis within the Maranello garage.
Leclerc: “we expected this kind of situation”
After setting the fastest time in free practice and also topping the SQ2 session, expectations were high that Charles Leclerc could fight for the front row, especially given the 11 updated components introduced by Ferrari on the SF-26. However, something did not fully work for the Monegasque driver in SQ3, where he improved by only one tenth and also suffered a drop in top speed that had a negative impact on his final attempt.
Despite this, the Monegasque stated that the result did not come as a surprise: “The upgrades are good, it’s just that everyone has brought upgrades. We expected this kind of situation, namely that Mercedes would still be the team to beat. McLaren has made a big step forward, but I had the impression they had not fully optimised the opening races of the season. They were always there, but they were not able to put all the pieces together.”
Regarding the lack of progress in SQ3, which is the only session where soft tyres are used in Sprint Qualifying, Charles Leclerc highlighted: “Today, in particular, we struggled with the tyres. On the mediums we were very strong, but on the softs it didn’t feel good at all, so we need to look into that. We know that on race pace we are stronger. In qualifying, there is still work to do.”
Optimism remains for the race
Despite a confirmed relative weakness compared to direct rivals over a single lap, in a tightly packed field where Charles Leclerc finished less than two tenths behind Antonelli’s second fastest time, the Monegasque driver remains confident in Ferrari’s race pace and in the potential to use Friday’s data to improve further for Saturday’s qualifying session, which will determine the starting grid for the Miami Grand Prix.
“In qualifying tomorrow we can try to fine-tune things and find a bit more performance, but I hope that in the race we can get back to the front. We have the pace to do it, we’ll see if we have the boldness to overtake,” Charles Leclerc added.
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