Daniel Ricciardo has suffered a terrible start to his season with RB that left him trailing behind team mate Yuki Tsunoda, but China signalled something of a renaissance in the Australian's form.
Although incidents meant he came away from Shanghai still without his first points for 2024, qualifying for the Miami Sprint race saw him sparkle and very much back to vintage form.
He caused a stir when he was fifth fastest in the second round, only to go on and improve that by one place in the final top ten pole shoot-out which saw him secure a spot on the second row of tomorrow's grid for the 13-lap Sprint.
"It's just so nice starting towards the front, even just being out of that mid-pack," he said, hoping that it would keep him out of the early jostling that proved so costly to him in the most recent races.
"That's normally a bit of chaos," he told Sky Sports F1 when interviewed in the paddock at Miami International Autodrome after today's session was over.
"Hopefully you go with the leaders at the beginning," he continued. "It's a short race so hopefully get kind of through enough of it with them in the first few laps, and end up with a good bag of points.
"Did I expect to do a second-row start? Probably not that good," he admitted. "But I've been able to do it before, so I know it was in me. I'm so happy with the second row, it's awesome.
“I felt really good in SQ2 and I knew that lap would be good enough for SQ3," he commented. "At that point I was P5 and in my head I was thinking 'P5 would be really nice for SQ3' - and then we got P4!
“It was wild because the laps were good, but it's hard to be really clean around here," he explained. "It's just a tricky track and that little middle sector, jumping across the chicane, it's hard to get a right.
"Both laps I hit the wall on the exit sixteen. The first one was a hit - it actually felt pretty big," he said, adding that he "didn't know if that helped his lap time."
Having to switch to soft tyres for the final round was also a factor for Ricciardo. "I expected a bit more from it, but it didn't really give that much more than the medium.
“I was speaking to Max just now and he was saying he was quite surprised to be P1 with his lap, and I was saying with mine I was surprised to be P4,” Ricciardo added. "I think we were expecting everyone to go a lot quicker, but they didn't.
"We were going for it and I had some good comfort in the car," he noted. “I was definitely pushing. It was really good. I'm very proud of what I did today, but also the team has been bringing upgrades the last few races.
"I had the chassis change last race in China and we had a new floor here, so it definitely looks like it's turning around.”
What would really be the icing on Ricciardo's cake would be to take his first points of the season,. Only the top eight get points in the Sprint compared with the top ten in the Grand Prix.
“I'd love to be more than eighth, for sure,” he acknowledged. “I'd love to get a few points from it, so we'll see what happens.
“I'm sure the second row will help our cause in getting some points," he said. "Just starting at the front, it's just a lot nicer than being 12th [or] 13th!"
Unfortunately that's more or less where Tsunoda will start the race, after the Japanese driver had his single flying lap in SQ2 deleted for exceeding track limits leaving him lining up in P15 on Saturday.
"We tried with one push but it didn’t work out," he said. "I wasn’t able to put it all together. In hindsight, two pushes maybe would’ve worked better for us but the pace the car showed does give me confidence for the remainder of the weekend.”
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