Isack Hadjar is set to have his qualifying result scrubbed after post-session technical checks found a problem on his car. The Frenchman had qualified ninth in his Red Bull but is now going to start Sunday's Miami Grand Prix from the very back of the pack.

The dimensions of the floor boards underneath his car were found to not be in conformity with the rules. Referring the matter to the stewards, FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer said the boards on both the left and right sides of the car were protruding by two millimetres more than the rules allow, when measured by scrutineers.

Technical breaches invariably result in a driver, in this case Hadjar, being disqualified from the session. As the issue was spotted so late in the day, his fate is on hold until 7am on Sunday morning when he must attend a hearing that has been called by the stewards. But the end result is expected to be that he will have to start the Grand Prix from the pit lane.

It adds to an already difficult weekend for Hadjar, who has enjoyed a strong start to life as a Red Bull driver but who has been off the pace so far. Red Bull brought with them a raft of aerodynamic upgrades which Max Verstappen put to good use as he flew to second place in qualifying, but Hadjar hasn't been able to unlock the same sort of pace boost just yet.

In qualifying, Hadjar's best effort was 0.825 seconds slower than the time set by Verstappen and attributed that to the lack of grip he was strugging with on a very hot track which exceeded 55 degrees Celcius during qualifying. Speaking before the technical breach was discovered, he said: "The car was very hard to drive.

"In Q3 I just couldn't put it all together and on the other side we have no straight line speed. I think it's a very tricky track, very low grip with high track temperature. So nothing to do with what we had in the first three rounds. It's not a very fluid racing track with good grip.

"It's completely different and Max is very good at adapting to these conditions. In the corners I can tell you I've made big progress compared to yesterday. I just couldn't tidy up like he did and on top of that I'm missing in every straight."

Verstappen was denied pole position, though, by Kimi Antonelli whose first lap of Q3 was good enough to beat any effort completey by his rivals, after a penalty saw him finish just sixth in the Sprint race earlier in the day. The Mercedes teenager said: "It's been an amazing day to be on pole again. It was a difficult start with the Sprint when it didn't go our way, but I'm super happy with the recovery."