Perez on Miami pole with Verstappen down in ninth

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez took pole position for the Miami Grand Prix while team-mate and title rival Max Verstappen will start only ninth.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso will join Perez on the front row.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz is third, with Kevin Magnussen scoring a sensational fourth for the US-based Haas team.

Elsewhere, Mercedes struggled. Lewis Hamilton was knocked out in the second session and will start down in 13th.

George Russell managed to sneak through into the top-10 shootout, where he secured sixth place behind the Alpine of Pierre Gasly.

Leclerc crash shakes up the order

Both Verstappen and Leclerc were under pressure going into the final runs after making errors in the early part of the session.

Verstappen had run wide at Turns Six and Seven and Leclerc brushed the wall at Turn 16.

Both needed to deliver on their final runs but Leclerc wrecked the rest of the session for everyone else when, running early, he lost control through the fast Turn Six and spun on the entry to Turn Seven, backing his Ferrari into the wall.

It was Leclerc’s second crash in two days at the same place after he also lost control a little later in the same sequence of corners in second practice on Friday. He will line up seventh.

The result is a huge bonus for Perez, who is six points behind Verstappen in a private championship battle between the two drivers for the dominant Red Bull team.

Perez had looked out of sorts for much of the weekend but he nailed an excellent lap on the first runs in the final session to put himself in the prime position going into the final runs.

The Mexican beat Alonso by 0.361secs as the veteran Spaniard continues his excellent start to the season.

Sainz was a further 0.147secs behind in his Ferrari.

Behind Leclerc, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, Verstappen and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas completed the top 10.

What did the top three say?

Perez was cheered loudly by the crowd at Hard Rock Stadium in this city with a large Latino population and thanked them during his interview after the session.

“It has been my worst weekend until qualifying really,” he said. “I just couldn’t figure out how to [recover] all those tenths I was missing to the Max and the Ferraris.

“I was just resetting everything and we did a small change into qualifying and everything came alive. We were playing with the tools and everything came together.

“I was just struggling for balance, confidence, this Tarmac is very sensitive to temperature.”

Alonso said: “It was a good qualifying. Final practice was a little bit messy for us. We tried a few set-ups and they did not work but we put the car back in a known place and it came alive.

“The car was so enjoyable to drive. You go close to the walls in Turns 11 to 16 and you need to have that confidence to go to the limit and I had that confidence and am very pleased.”

More to follow.