It was mixed emotions for Red Bull Racing during qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix Sprint Race.
Four-time World Champion Max Verstappen, who celebrated becoming a father just a day earlier, qualified P4 ahead of Saturday's Sprint Race. Teammate Yuki Tsunoda, meanwhile, will start back in P18.
Verstappen's first lap in SQ1 was enough to see him through to the next stage comfortably. The Dutchman went out for another run as a precaution, but his initial time was more than sufficient.
Tsunoda, however, needed to get another lap in after setting a slow one at the beginning of SQ1 due to issues with his helmet. Unfortunately, with a lengthy queue in the pit lane, he failed to cross the line before time expired and could not begin his push lap.
This means the Japanese driver begins the race just two places above last, suffering from the same situation as Alpine's Jack Doohan, who lines up alongside him in P17.
With Tsunoda out, it was up to Verstappen to qualify as high as possible to give the team hope of claiming points in the Sprint. In SQ2, Verstappen set the second-fastest time, a 1:27.245, behind McLaren's Lando Norris—more than enough to move into SQ3 without any concerns.
The 27-year-old was able to improve his time by half a second in SQ3, topping out at 1:26.582, but it wasn't enough to put him on the front row. He will start the Sprint in P4, alongside Norris in P3 and behind McLaren's Oscar Piastri in P2 and Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, the pole sitter.
Speaking after qualifying, Verstappen commented: "I think what we did in Q3 was good, the tyres were holding on quite well but unfortunately, already from FP1, just struggling with a lot of understeer."
"Around here, with all these low-speed corners, you lose a lot of lap time."
He added: "I think you can see in the first sector we're quite competitive, because that's where a few high-speed corners are, but as soon as you get to the low-speed, I lack quite a bit of grip."
"P4 is alright. I mean, it's of course not where I want to be, but you also need to be realistic with the limitations that we have at the moment."
He summarised: "It was still quite close."
