MADRID — Lando Norris snatched pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid's new Madring street circuit with a stunning final lap that McLaren team principal Andrea Stella called "a masterpiece." Norris improved by 0.701 seconds between his two laps in final qualifying to beat runaway championship leader Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes by just 0.011 seconds, despite losing more than 0.3 seconds with a mistake at the final corner.
Stella, who has worked with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, said it was "one of the most impressive laps that I witnessed as somebody that watches telemetry in 450 grands prix, because we were not honestly performing to the level of scoring pole position." He added: "The most impressive thing is the fact that it's a pole position despite having lost 0.35secs in the last corner, which means that it would have been a pretty convincing pole position without this issue." Norris said: "Until the last corner, I think I matched that perfection level in pretty much every corner. So, yeah, it's a dream to achieve a lap like that. So it was easily one of the best laps I've ever done." He admitted of the final corner, "I thought I was in the wall and that was just from over-pushing."
Norris, who does not use a delta display on his dashboard, said: "I don't need my delta. I can feel when I do what I need to do and when I get a good exit, when I'm on the limit of things." The lap came despite missing virtually all of second practice with a gearbox problem, costing him crucial race-simulation running. The Madring snakes around an exhibition centre near Madrid's international airport, about a 15-minute drive from the city, with walls close and barriers angling back toward the track. Mercedes driver George Russell described it as "very high risk" with "less margin than Monaco," yet qualifying ran incident-free after two red flags in final practice caused by seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton and Haas driver Oliver Bearman.
It was Norris' third pole of the season after converting his first two into dominant wins in Hungary and the Netherlands. "Tomorrow is going to be a very tough day," Norris said. "It's not going to be as straightforward as in Zandvoort and Budapest. There we were the quickest car. Yes, I'm on pole now, but we're not in the quickest car. It took a perfect lap to get me on pole by 0.011secs today." Tyre degradation is expected to be high on the smooth, high-grip new surface, and with the longest pit lane of the year — which Norris joked was "6km long" and is cut in half by a building — a one-stop is theoretically favoured but could become a two-stop. Antonelli said it "probably is going to be grandmother driving in the first 10 laps - we saw how steep the degradation can be, especially if you push too early." Overtaking is expected to be especially difficult on the short straights, with Max Verstappen, who qualified third, noting "there are no corners where you can pass."
Stella pointed to the precision that defined the lap, citing "the braking, the speed you carry in entry, the striking of the kerbs, the going on power. Everything is executed with a pretty unique level of precision." Norris added: "Everything came together perfectly. I got the timing of everything so dialled in, with the kerb hits, how you hit the kerb, brake points, all of these things."