"Just like the old days": Miami F1 sprint qualifying wound back the clock

Lando Norris says qualifying for the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix sprint race was “just like the old days” with four teams in contention at the front of the field.

In the end, the McLaren driver came out on top and took pole, having progressed through the first two sessions in first and seventh.

McLaren has brought a huge package of upgrades this weekend, and Lando Norris indicated that they worked from the off, giving him confidence that was lacking in the previous iteration of the car – and putting him into the sort of comfort zone he enjoyed in 2025.

“I feel very good,” he said. “I'm very happy for the team of course. It's always a lot of expectations, a lot of work has gone into trying to bring these upgrades. And it's always just difficult to anticipate or to know what to expect coming into a new weekend.

“But since lap one, literally Turn 1, everything felt better. Felt a little bit more like last year, with just having some confidence in the car.

“And I felt that, I felt like I've exploited that through the whole day today. So a nice start to the weekend. Probably better than we're expecting, honestly. We're expecting better, of course, but we didn't know, in terms of quantity, how it's going to be. So a little surprise, but a pleasant one for sure.”

Norris conceded that while he was optimistic ahead of qualifying he could see it was tight between the top four teams.

“By the end of FP1 honestly, it was just close between a lot of people,” he said. “Red Bull seemed quick, Ferrari seemed quick. Mercedes seemed quick.

"So it seemed like the old days, when it was four teams and it could be any of them, in a way.

“But we seem to take a good little step forward into quali. And especially Q1 I just felt confident, but it was so close, it wasn't like I was P1 so I felt good confidence, and I knew if I just put together a good last lap, that we would be up there.

“But I was a bit more surprised by the gap still. So a lot of good things, a lot of positives. Very happy for the team. It's like I said, it's nice to reward them with something so quickly.

"So it is just sprint quali. So nothing to be overly proud of, in some ways. But still a long weekend out of us."

Looking ahead to Saturday’s sprint and qualifying for the main race, he said: “We'll see. It's hard to know what everyone does in long runs and everything. So it's still, like I said, a long weekend, many things can happen, but we started as well as we could have asked for, so plenty of good things.

“And if we're this quick in quali, normally you'd expect to continue that into long runs. Plenty of unknowns. It's still a new car for us, so we're still learning things on the go.

"We're still trying to exploit things, and I'm sure we'll make some improvements into tomorrow qualifying, but for now, I'm happy."