Verstappen: I made it difficult for myself

Saturday was the day when the favorite for pole position, Max Verstappen, and his closest challenger, Charles Leclerc, bungled their qualifying sessions and handing their rivals the two top spots on a silver platter.

Verstappen, as always, was full beans on his first flying lap in Q3, and ran wide, aborting the lap confining himself to one attempt at a timed lap in the top ten shootout after failing to put in a banker, which was always going to be risky.

And indeed, Leclerc rose up to the challenge, binning his Ferrari on his second timed lap while Verstappen was on his outlap, bringing out the Red Flag with less than two minutes on the clock, as the stewards decided not to restart the session. Game over!

As such, Sergio Perez took pole, with Alonso second and Carlos Sainz third, while Verstappen and Leclerc start the Miami Grand Prix seventh and ninth respectively.

Verstappen took the blame for his qualifying; he said: "The initial problem starts with me today, I was taking the car to its limit and I made a mistake.

"I had to abort the lap and then you rely on a bit of luck that there won't be a red flag. It's painful and upsetting, we've been really quick all weekend, my fastest lap in Q2 would have been quick enough for pole which I think says that we have a quick enough car," the reigning Formula 1 Champion added.

"Of course, I go into every weekend trying to win, but starting ninth is not the optimum position. My minimum target tomorrow should be P2. It's going to be tough tomorrow for sure, but I made it tough for myself," the Red Bull ace admitted.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner refused to rule out a strong result for his start driver; he said: "It was frustrating for Max not to get that chance on the second run, there will be a lot of work for him to do tomorrow.

"But we've seen him come through from 15th to win previously and you can't rule a driver like Max out" the Briton concluded.