Miami Grand Prix Qualifying: Top three press conference transcript

Featuring pole winner Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), P2 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and P3 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) with David Coulthard conducting Parc Ferme interviews. 

Antonelli again owned his Mercedes teammate George Russell in style to take pole in Miami, delivering a clean, decisive lap that underlined his pace and growing authority at Mercedes, in the wake of his two victories leading up to Miami.

Max Verstappen secured P2, continuing Red Bull’s steady recovery. He maximised the car despite lacking ultimate pace, keeping himself firmly in contention for the race, for the first time this season. Charles Leclerc was P3 for Ferrari, and will be looking to bag a first win of the season for the Reds.

Q: Third consecutive pole and championship leader as well. What a great day for you.

Kimi ANTONELLI: Yeah, it’s been an amazing day, you know, to be on pole again. It was obviously a difficult start of the day with the Sprint, where it didn’t go our way, but super happy with the recovery. And yeah, it was a good quali. Obviously got a little bit too excited in that last lap of Q3, but the first lap was good enough. I’m very happy with that.

  Q: Yeah, take us through that. I mean, it looked like an all-or-nothing attempt to lock the front brakes. Then you’ve got to do the rest of the lap thinking, “Oh, have I done enough already?”

KA: Yeah, I was very stressed, to be fair, because I was just waiting for everyone to finish their laps. But yeah, at the end, as I said before, it was good enough and really happy with that.

  Q: Now, I’m sure you’ve done some magic starts on the simulator, so there’s one coming up tomorrow I hope for you.

KA: Yeah, hopefully the magic one will happen tomorrow. It would be nice to not lose any positions, but yeah, we’ll do our best. This weekend obviously it’s been a little bit more difficult for us, but we’re keeping all this together and we’re maximising the performance, so I’m very happy with that.

  Q: I think Max is next up. What a turnaround, Max. What a turnaround. You must be pretty satisfied with that. What did you do to the car or find something extra on the track?

Max VERSTAPPEN: Yeah, for me it’s been two things. For sure, the car has not been great in the previous races, but also from my side I never felt comfortable with the layout of the car. And I think over those last few weeks the team has been pushing flat out to try and bring upgrades to the car and making me feel more comfortable with a lot of things in the car, and it really pays off. I mean, I feel more in control of the car again and then I can push a bit more, then the upgrades are working. And yeah, I mean, to be on the front row is way better than I expected heading into this.

  Q: Yeah, I mean, you certainly found some good time and if you can get a good start, you’ve got a chance of controlling this race, and it might rain of course, so out front like that is pretty critical.

MV: Let’s first start with a good start. I’ve not had a lot of them this year, so we’ll try to have a look at that for sure, see what the weather will do tomorrow. But I’m already very happy with where we are. From here there’s light at the end of the tunnel, that we can just push on and try to close the gap further.

  Q: And your race pace, you’re confident in that too? MV: Looked alright in the Sprint, once I was in clean air. Of course, tomorrow is a completely different day.

  Q: Charles, P3. Happy with that? It was a tense qualifying and super competitive. Charles LECLERC: Yeah, it was on the limit. At the end of the day, we were just not fast enough today. And this weekend we brought a significant package, which helped us, but there are still [things] here and there where we need to improve a little bit. It was a very tricky qualifying. The wind was changing also slightly from run to run, so the car was behaving differently. Especially in 11 and 12, there was massive differences between laps, so that was tricky to manage, to put it all together. P3 is a good starting position, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

  Q: You talked about when you rode the kerb going out of Turn 8. Did it do any damage underneath?

CL: I didn’t have any news from the team, so I think no, but I’ll have to check. It was quite a big hit, but yeah, I don’t think it affected massively the end result.

  Q: All to play for. What’s in the Ferrari team about the weather tomorrow? What’s the information?

CL: It looks wet. It looks wet. Then how much and when, is still to be defined, but I think it will be.  

  Q: Kimi, many congratulations. That was a great opening lap of Q3. Just how pleased were you with that performance?

KA: Yeah, it was a good lap, very clean, put more or less everything together. Of course, yeah, then the last lap I probably got a bit too excited and I braked way too late, and I knew I wasn’t going to make the corner the moment I braked. But yeah, obviously luckily it was good enough, because of course you never know, especially with Max and Charles, because they’re very good in quali. So, I was pretty stressed on the way in, but yeah, happy that we were still able to keep the pole.

  Q: Do you think there was more on the table? Do you think if you’d had a clean lap that second lap?

KA: I mean, it’s hard to say because I didn’t do the lap, so difficult. But yeah, you never know. I mean, this track today was difficult with the wind, pretty gusty, and it’s not an easy track to put everything together. So, I don’t know, to be fair. I can’t give an answer to that.

  Q: Look, tomorrow looks wet. What do you think these cars are going to be like in those conditions to drive?

KA: I don’t know. I mean, it’s definitely going to be tricky, I think, because so many drivers didn’t drive the car in the wet, and also hearing the feedback, it’s not the easiest car to drive in the wet. But let’s see, also, if they’re going to move the race earlier just to avoid the thunderstorm. So, I think we’ll see better tomorrow what the situation is going to be like. But for sure, driving the car for the first time in the wet in the race probably is not the most fun and easiest opportunity to do so. But we’ll try to be ready for anything.

  Q: And Kimi, final one for me. What does it mean to you to have three poles in a row? Do you feel like you’re on a roll?

KA: Well, I don’t know. I mean, it feels great to get pole. Definitely it’s good to pick up from where we left, to get another pole and starting on the front row. But of course, first of all, I need to get off the line decently because it hasn’t been good so far. So yeah, let’s see. But for sure it feels good. I’m happy with the performance and yeah, we’ll try to finish the job tomorrow.

  Q: OK, very well done to you. And Max, what a session for you and Red Bull. Just what aspects of the car’s performance pleased you the most today?

MV: A lot of things. I mean, so many things were not working up until this weekend. So, for us, bringing the car back together, also for me in the car itself, a few things have changed, and it made it a lot more comfortable to drive. And just I feel a lot more confidence and I don’t feel like I’m a passenger anymore in the car. That was already quite evident yesterday. And then I think today the Sprint was not too bad. I could finally follow the cars ahead of me instead of them just pulling away and not see them again. And then some tiny changes for qualifying and it seemed like that helped again a little bit. And yeah, to be on the front row, coming from over a second behind in the previous race, is really incredible.

  Q: I mean, it’s a crazy thing. You didn’t even get into Q3 at Suzuka. Different circuit obviously, but can you describe the effort that’s gone in back at Milton Keynes just to get the turnaround in performance that we’ve seen?

MV: It’s massive. I mean, we were really not happy, of course, with what we were doing the previous races, but you can see everyone was pushing flat out to try and understand the problems, and they have come with solutions. And that’s just amazing to see, amazing team effort. And yeah, from my side then, of course, when I get a car that is more together, I get more confidence, and I can finally also push a bit more. Then I try to always extract the most out of it. And yeah, that’s what we’ve done. Honestly, in that lap as well, just trying to hang on to it, and it was good.

  Q: Look, final one for me, same one that I asked Kimi. Max, just what are your thoughts on driving these cars in a wet race tomorrow? What do you think they’ll be like? MV: Quite slippery. I’ve driven them, of course, in Barcelona. I think it was only me and Charles that day, we were driving, so yeah, it was quite lonely. Yeah, it’s quite a handful. It’s not going to be easy. But let’s first also wait and see how much water is going to come down, because that also makes a big difference.

  Q: Alright, Max, very well done to you and to Red Bull. And Charles, let’s come to you now. You said in the press conference earlier that you wanted to have a better qualifying this afternoon than you did yesterday. How was the car? Are you pleased with the performance?

CL: No, not really. I think we struggled quite a bit more today than we did yesterday in terms of pace and feeling with the car as well. So, we’ve got to look at that. It’s a little bit strange. Not much has changed on the car, but the feeling was not the same for sure. So, we’ll look into it.

  Q: How much of that was down to the track temperature, the gusty wind?

CL: The wind is definitely a factor. I think track temperature wasn’t that different, so I don’t think that is a reason. But the wind has for sure changed a little bit. Whether it will affect our car more than others, I don’t believe in that. So, I think it’s somewhere else the answer. Maybe it is the track evolution and we didn’t anticipate that well, and maybe by just pushing a little bit more today in qualifying the weaknesses of the car were a little bit more apparent. So yeah, but I obviously didn’t have a close look at the data just yet as I just got out the car. So we’ll have to look at the details and try to understand where we lost most time.

  Q: How surprised are you by the pace of Kimi and Max this afternoon?

CL: Well, I don’t think it’s a surprise for Kimi because they’ve been the fastest car since the beginning of the year and Kimi has done an incredible job in the last three races. I mean, Max and Red Bull is a bit more of a surprise, but they brought a significant upgrade, and they are a great team. They’ve shown it over the past years, so it’s not that we can rely on them staying where they were for the first three races. So we expected a reaction, but it’s a very impressive reaction to be back on the front row after being so far off in the first races. It’s special. But yeah, our job is to do just the same and to finish in front of those guys. So that’s where my focus is at the moment.

  Q: (Thomas Maher – PlanetF1.com) Max, obviously it looks like a fairly significant improvement for Red Bull and you’ve kind of touched on the improvements that have been made, but can you expand a little bit more on the areas in which you’re feeling more comfortable around the lap, whether that’s on braking, throttle, through corner speed, and how much of it is down to understanding the aero package more versus, say, energy management?

MV: Honestly, it’s everything, because before nothing really worked. I felt like a total passenger in the car. It could understeer, it could snap on me, it could feel different from one session to the other one without even touching parts. So, we understood a lot of stuff. I think we’re still not where we want to be in terms of understanding everything, but most of it. And that showed that here the car just feels a lot more together. I can finally drive how I want to drive also with just my steering inputs, and that helps a lot. And then I think also with the energy management, I think everyone is learning every single weekend. So are we, of course. We are completely new manufacturers, so I think our learning curve is probably a little bit more steep. But yes, they’re doing a really good job and it’s just getting, let’s say, better and better every time.

  Q: (Ronald Vording – Motorsport.com) It’s one for Kimi. How surprised are you to see Max and Red Bull back in the mix? And in general, if we zoom out a bit this weekend, are you surprised by how much the other teams have, I know your upgrades are coming a bit later, but how much the other teams have caught up compared to Mercedes?

KA: Yeah, I mean, it’s not really a surprise about other teams catching up. It’s just the first year of these new regulations and it’s going to be also a development fight between teams. Whoever is going to be able to bring more upgrades and more potent ones is going to make the difference. And definitely it was not a surprise, but definitely to see Max here, we did not expect it as a team. But I think they obviously brought big upgrades and for sure also Max has been extracting the maximum out of the car, if not more. So, definitely to see him here is a surprise. But yeah, on our side, I think we’ve been struggling a little bit more this weekend than usual. We’ve been struggling to find the balance, to put the car in the right place. But I think with the team we did a great job ahead of qualifying with the changes we made. And yeah, now we’ll focus on tomorrow.  

Q: (Edd Straw – The Race) Another one for you, Kimi. You said that the balance seems to have improved into this session with changes, but how much was gained on the deployment side? Because there seems to be a marked difference in what McLaren and Mercedes were doing in sprint quali yesterday. Is that something that you learned from? Has that helped in terms of performance as well?

KA: Yeah, for sure. I mean, yesterday I had a little issue on the last lap with the deployment. So definitely today we maximised that more. So, for sure we’ve been moving the deployment around, just trying to find the best compromise, and for sure it makes a difference. It’s not easy to pick and understand which are the best places, because even in a small straight sometimes you underestimate how much you can gain by just deploying a bit more. So yeah, definitely that has helped and the team has been doing a tremendous job on that side.

  Q: (David Neal – Miami Herald) For Kimi, how much can you take from your experience last year, being on the pole for the sprint race that was pretty wet last year, for tomorrow?

KA: OK… No, I got distracted by the DJ. It looked like Shaquille O’Neal for a second. I think the experience overall last year has helped a lot. And I think coming into the track after one year of experience definitely helps. Got the reference of a Formula 1 car, also know the track better, know the points where you can make up time. So definitely the experience has helped a lot. And I think it’s playing a big role in every race I’m going back. So, I think definitely also last year this track seemed to be a good one for me. But for sure, yeah, it has helped a lot because also I was much more comfortable, for example, in FP1, to go out there and be on the limit. So definitely experience has been playing a massive role.

  Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – The Athletic) Another question to Kimi, please. Kimi, obviously no one can fail to notice how hot it is out there. What difference does that make for you guys behind the wheel compared to the cooler conditions earlier in the season? Thanks.

KA: Yeah, I mean, in the sprint race it felt like the first lap out there was that I had a hairdresser pointed at my face. No, a hairdryer. What did I say? A hairdresser? Oh my God! I’m dreaming! Sorry, long day. It felt like I had a hairdryer in my face, not a hairdresser!

MV: But a hairdresser doesn’t have a hairdryer…

KA: Yeah, exactly! A hairdresser with a hairdryer pointing at my face. No, definitely it was very hot and especially when you run behind other cars, obviously you get the heat from the exhaust and everything. So definitely the sprint race, it was not easy heat-wise. In fact, I was quite surprised they didn’t declare any heat hazard for the weekend because it’s been very, very hot. But for sure, yeah, we’ll see a big difference compared to previous weekends. The previous weekends have been a lot cooler on that side, and for the first time we’re experiencing such a high track temp and high air temperature. So definitely it’s been more challenging on that side as well.