Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were disappointed to not be higher than fourth and seventh respectively in the 2026 F1 Miami GP Sprint Qualifying session. Coming off a long lull in action, Ferrari and several other teams on the grid arrived with major upgrades.
In Leclerc’s assessment post the Miami Sprint Qualifying, he detailed that upgrades appear to have at best kept level from where they were before the break.
“Upgrades are fine. It’s just that it’s everybody brought upgrades, so we kind of expected that situation where Mercedes is probably still the car to beat. McLaren did a very big step forward, but I felt like they didn’t really optimise their first races of the season, so they were always there but they didn’t put everything together.“
Soft tyre struggles for Ferrari at 2026 Miami GP
Leclerc attributed Ferrari’s sprint qualifying struggles to issues working with the soft tyre. The struggles sank what had been an otherwise fast car throughout the 2026 Miami GP weekend.
“On our side, we have just been, today particularly, we’ve struggled with tyres. Medium [tyres] were working very well. On the soft it wasn’t a nice feeling, so on that we’ve got to look at it. We know that in the race pace we are stronger, but in terms of qualifying there’s still some work to be done.“
“I think in qualifying tomorrow we can try and fine-tune a little bit and find a bit of performance, but I hope that in the race we can come back in the front. We’ve got the pace to do that. Let’s just see if we are able to overtake.“
Hamilton expected stronger results in the Sprint Qualifying session
Hamilton had a particularly frustrating session, with P7 being his lowest qualifying performance since the season-opener in Melbourne.
Heading into the weekend Ferrari were one of several teams that brought significant upgrades, but it seemed that they were no match for the likes of McLaren, with Lando Norris securing P1 and team mate Oscar Piastri in P3.
“I had hoped that we would be better. But, yeah, the car didn’t feel particularly great. I thought we would be stronger than we were today. We’re going to have to do some work overnight to try and figure out why we’re not that quick. And, yeah, I was hopeful coming in positive that we’re going to be much higher, but not meant to be.“
