The Australian will start the sprint from the second row after finishing just under a quarter of a second behind teammate Lando Norris, who claimed pole, and narrowly missing out on a front-row lockout to Kimi Antonelli.

“I’m happy with that,” he said.

“The car had good potential, which was really nice to see.

“We still have things to improve, but the new package is a good step, so thank you to the whole team for their efforts.

“Congratulations to Lando as well, we didn’t luck into today’s result, the potential is there.”

McLaren’s performance marked a significant step forward following a raft of upgrades introduced for the Miami weekend, with both cars showing strong pace throughout the session.

Piastri noted the competitive picture remained tight across the leading teams, particularly with Ferrari showing speed across the day.

“The Ferraris looked strong throughout the day, so qualifying where we have is a really good effort,” he added.

“Whilst we expect the Mercedes to remain competitive, they haven’t looked as dominant so far, but there’s still a lot of track action to go.

“We’ll take the learnings from today and see what we can do in the sprint, before we switch our focus to GP qualifying.”

Team Principal Andrea Stella said early signs suggest the team’s upgrades are delivering as intended, even as much of the grid introduced significant changes of their own.

“First of all it’s very early in the weekend, but we have had some encouraging indications already in free practice where we saw that the upgrades that we brought here, they were delivering as expected,” he told Sky Sports.

Stella highlighted the scale of development across the field, but praised McLaren’s execution in bringing its package to the car.

“Obviously when we saw the list of upgrades from all teams this morning we saw, like, everyone is basically taking a new car. Or at least 50 percent of the pit lane,” he added.

“So we said let’s see who’s done a better job. And I have to say that they have demonstrated in the past, men and women at McLaren, they’ve done a really, really good job of designing, manufacturing, delivering these upgrades.

“So, it’s good to see McLaren again in the leading position in a qualifying session, even if it’s only Friday and it’s a sprint qualifying session, but it’s encouraging.”

Stella added that the exact gains remained difficult to quantify, but suggested the step forward is measurable, even if rivals remain close.

“I think we can see in the lap times it’s a bit of a turnaround in terms of lap times. But let’s see,” he said.

With multiple teams showing competitive pace, Stella said he expected a closely fought contest across the remainder of the weekend.

“We have seen Red Bull more competitive. Ferrari. McLaren. I think that’s good,” he said.

“We should have good racing here in Miami. And hopefully good racing in the following races.

“But what’s important is that McLaren is there and we can have a very interesting competition.”

The Miami sprint gets underway at 2am AEST Sunday (12pm Miami time Saturday).

This story originally appeared on Speedcafe.com and has been republished with permission.

MCLAREN HITS BACK: NORRIS, PIASTRI ERUPT UNDER F1’S NEW RULES

By Todd Balym

Reigning world champion Lando Norris has broken the Mercedes stranglehold of the F1 season as new regulation changes brought competitiveness back to the grid as the series resumed in Miami.

The McLaren star produced a flying 1:27.869 in the sprint qualifying session to narrowly edge current F1 series leader, Mercedes young gun Kimi Antonelli by 0.222s and claim pole position.

McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri was third quickest, just 0.239s behind Norris, in a positive sign that the reigning constructors champion team has rediscovered their full potential with a car upgrade and the recent regulation changes.

Mercedes has totally dominated the new F1 season under the controversial regulations, claiming pole position and race victories at all three season stops in Australia, China and Japan.

But after a mini break following postponed events in the Middle East, regulation changes at least on current timesheets appear to have brought parity back to the field.

All the top teams featured in the SQ3, with McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and Alpine having both their drivers in the top 10.

Not only that, the top five featured with four different teams.

George Russell, the Mercedes driver widely tipped to win the world title this year after his huge victory in Melbourne, could only manage to qualify in sixth place.

“It’s a good result for us, this is the beginning of the weekend and there is a long way to go,” Norris said.

“I’ve always felt good around here and it’s good to start the weekend with a pole.”