Verstappen claims sprint victory and Miami GP pole despite 'extremely difficult' lap

Max Verstappen said he was finding it "extremely difficult to be consistent with the car" despite winning the sprint race on Saturday and claiming pole position for Sunday's Miami Grand Prix.

Red Bull's reigning world champion and championship leader, who has won four out of five grands prix 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 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," the Dutch driver 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