As expected Sprint Qualifying at the Miami International Autodrome consisted of three very closely contested mini sessions, with places on the front few rows of the grid fought over to the hundredths of a second.

In this second Sprint race of the season, which starts tomorrow at 12 local (18 CEST) run over 19 laps, the Scuderia Ferrari HP duo of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton will line up on the sixth and seventh places on the grid.

As per the regulations, all twenty drivers tackled the first two parts of qualifying on Medium tyres, before switching to Softs for the final part to decide the grid order for the top five rows. For SQ1 and SQ2, both SF-25 were fuelled to do two flying laps and that proved the right choice, especially in terms of managing traffic, with both drivers getting through to the final part without too much difficulty. In Q3, the decision was taken between team and drivers to go for a single run, as indeed did the other eight drivers. Charles posted a time of 1'26"808 to secure sixth place, 71 thousandths off Max Verstappen on the second row and 17 off George Russell's fifth best time. Lewis stopped the clocks in 1'27"030 and will thus start the Sprint from seventh.

Overnight, the team will prepare every last detail for tomorrow's Sprint race, which as always, will serve two purposes, namely delivering championship points from eight for the winner to one for eighth place, as well as producing useful data for Sunday's Grand Prix, as it represents the only opportunity for the teams to tackle a long run. Parc ferme rules are lifted after the Sprint so that teams can work on the cars prior to qualifying for the Grand Prix, which takes place at 16 local (22 CEST) when data from this afternoon's session will prove useful.

Charles Leclerc: We're not happy with our position. There wasn't much room for improvement today, and it looks like this is our baseline for now.

I'll try to have a good start in tomorrow's Sprint and take it from there. It isn't an easy weekend so far, so we have lots of work to do.

Lewis Hamilton: We're not quite where we want to be just yet, but there were definitely some encouraging signs, especially in SQ1 where the car felt more connected. There's still work to do, but we're focused on maximising the package we have and continuing to build from here.

Fred Vasseur: Congratulation to Kimi (Antonelli) for his mega lap, he did a very good job and he is a long way ahead. Behind him the situation was much closer and we were not far from the guys in front of us but that's not enough, as we found it difficult to put everything together. There were some mistakes and we have struggled with the car balance and that comes at a price in today's Formula 1.

Tomorrow in the Sprint race, tyre management and degradation will come into play and it could be another story.

Check out our Friday gallery from Miami here.