McLaren’s upgrades were the talk of the town heading into the 2024 F1 Miami GP weekend. The whole updated package was given to Lando Norris. Oscar Piastri will receive the full upgrade package in Imola as he got 50% of it this weekend.
McLaren were favourites for pole position at the start of SQ3 as Lando Norris was quickest in SQ1 and SQ2 by a solid margin.
Despite setting the fastest time of the entire session (1:27.597) on medium tyres in SQ2, Norris had to satisfy himself with a P9 result, eight tenths away from the pole lap of Max Verstappen.
The McLaren driver admitted his mistake, as he failed to keep the soft tyres in the right temperature window for SQ3. His tyre quickly overheated after a mistake at the start of the lap, and he lost almost 0.8s to Verstappen in S1.
“I just pushed too hard, as simple as that. No, car was feeling very good. Yeah, just silly to be honest. Couple of mistakes in turn 1 and just, big spiral from there.”
Norris lamented the error, while complimenting the Woking-based team for the updated package they delivered as the MCL38 looked very strong on Friday.
“A shame, cause the team had done a good job, the upgrades are working, so I am happy with everything, just not with one thing.”
Norris does, however, remain positive for the rest of the weekend. The pace of MCL38 is promising, and he hopes overtaking should not be an issue in the Sprint Race.
“I hope so, I mean the pace was very good, probably one of the quickest. Disappointed with today, but I’ll do my best tomorrow.”
On the other side of the garage was Oscar Piastri, who will start the Sprint Race in P6, outqualifying Lando Norris despite a huge snap in turn 4 on the softs in SQ3.
The Melbourne driver stated that session seemed sketchy for everyone, while confessing that his own lap felt terrible.
“I just think it was a really, really tricky session for everybody. I don’t know if the track changed a little bit or, if we all just thought the soft was going to be a lot better, but yeah, my lap felt pretty terrible. And it was P6 so, I think everyone must’ve just had a bad run.”
Piastri labelled the lack of performance on softs in SQ3 strange, while stating that his teammate had done the quickest time on the mediums.
While far from the perfect result, Piastri added he’ll find contentment in P6.
“Lando did the quickest lap of the whole qualifying on a medium in SQ2. It’s strange but I’ll take P6.”
The Australian driver is not worried about tyre degradation either. Piastri said that it would be tough for everyone, but it can be managed.
“I don’t think so. It’s going to be tough for everybody, I think. The tyres seem to be surviving okay — they’re just very hot. Not too concerned.”
After a jumbled grid for the Sprint Race, Piastri believes in the possibility of an exciting race with both McLarens out of position on the grid.
“But I think it could be an exciting sprint. We’ve got a few cars out of position, I feel like nobody’s really had much consistency, so yeah, it will be exciting tomorrow.”
