MIAMI (Reuters) - New dad Max Verstappen showed he could be even faster as a father after storming to pole position at the Miami Formula One Grand Prix ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris on Saturday.
Days after the Red Bull driver and partner Kelly Piquet welcomed daughter Lily, his first child, the four-time champion set a blistering lap of one minute 26.204 seconds around the Hard Rock Stadium.
The pole was an immediate and impressively firm response to being demoted to last in the wet earlier sprint race following a 10-second penalty for an unsafe release in the pit lane and collision with Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli.
"Clearly it didn't make me slower as well, being a dad, so that's the positive," said Verstappen.
"We can throw that out of the window as well for people mentioning it."
Norris, winner in Miami last year after Verstappen also secured pole for that race, was 0.065 slower and possibly taking comfort in the knowledge that no driver has won from pole at the track since the race debuted in 2022.
Antonelli, the 18-year-old who became the youngest ever pole sitter in the sprint, qualified third fastest with McLaren's championship leader, Oscar Piastri, completing the second row in fourth.
Norris had earlier won the sprint, trimming second-placed Australian Piastri's advantage to nine points, and now has a great chance to make further inroads.
"Congrats to Max, especially being a dad now. I was hoping it would slow him down," joked the Briton.
"Max did a Max lap once again and I can't fault him. I'm happy and excited for tomorrow."
PODIUM LIKE A WIN
George Russell qualified fifth for Mercedes with Williams' Carlos Sainz sixth and teammate Alex Albon seventh to make up for the disappointment of being demoted from the points in the sprint.
"A podium would be a win tomorrow. Realistically, the McLarens are out of reach. Max's race pace has been surprisingly good recently," said Russell.
"We talk a lot about McLaren, but Red Bull is still strong. Hopefully, a bit more rain will spice things up a bit."
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc will start eighth, after missing the sprint race due to a crash on the way from the pit lane to the starting grid, and Esteban Ocon qualified ninth for Haas, with Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda 10th.
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, third in the sprint, came swiftly back down to earth when he qualified only 12th for Ferrari.
"We will keep trying. We are only six races in, but we are struggling big time," said the 40-year-old.
Further back, Jack Doohan made it to the second phase and outqualified Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly for the first time with 14th place.
Haas rookie Ollie Bearman qualified last, while Aston Martin had another disappointing session with Fernando Alonso, who crashed in the sprint, 17t,h and Lance Stroll 19th.
Verstappen was fastest in the first phase, again ahead of Norris, but Piastri then made it a McLaren one-two in phase two with every likelihood of continuing that way in the final shootout.
Verstappen ripped up the script to secure his third pole in six races and second in a row, as well as becoming the first driver to take a repeat pole in Miami.
"This is normally not really one of our strongest tracks because of all the low speed but actually this weekend we have been struggling a lot in straight line speed," said the Dutch driver.
"In the low speed I'm still not happy. It's not fully gripping how I want to but we've been more competitive over one lap. The race is a different story."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Deepa Babington and Pritha Sarkar)
