Verstappen takes pole in Miami after sprint race win

MIAMI GARDENS, United States -- Red Bull's Max Verstappen continued his domination of Formula One, taking pole position for the Miami Grand Prix on Monday (Manila time) after clinching the sprint race. 

The reigning world champion and championship leader, who has won four out of five Grand Prix races this season, secured his seventh straight pole position with another dominant drive.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, whose fastest lap was 0.141 seconds behind Verstappen, will start second with his teammate Carlos Sainz in third place and Verstappen's Red Bull partner Sergio Perez fourth.

Three-time world champion Verstappen has won both the previous Miami Grand Prix races but never from pole and he said he still found qualifying tricky.

"Every single year that we come here, I find it extremely difficult to be very consistent with the car feeling, the tyre feeling over one lap," he said.

"It's not the single most enjoyable lap of my career just because of how slippery it is. You are not very confident on the lap but we are on pole and of course that is the most important thing."

Leclerc said it had been hard to manage the tyres, with overheating a problem, but said his performance in the sprint race gave him encouragement.

"That's where we lost a little bit of time, however the race is long tomorrow, we showed good pace this morning (in the sprint race) and I hope we can put Max under a bit more pressure," he said.

Sainz underscored just how tricky it had been for drivers to deliver their fastest lap on the course around Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL's Miami Dolphins.

"It's really tricky around here with a new soft. Every lap is a bit of adventure," he said.

"With the wind you don't know what will happen. Keeping all that in mind, the laps were not too bad.

"You always finish the lap and think you could have gone so much faster, but it's almost impossible to put a perfect clean lap around here."

Lando Norris will start in P5, just ahead of the Mercedes pair George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

Earlier, Verstappen cruised to victory in the sprint race, finishing 3.3 seconds ahead of Leclerc.

The Dutchman led from pole and was never challenged after a chaotic opening