Lando Norris takes the seventh pole position of his F1 season ahead of the Las Vegas GP. It’s the third in a row for the Brit, who becomes the first driver to achieve this result since Max Verstappen’s strong start in 2024. Norris also becomes the fifth McLaren driver to secure such a streak of top spots, joining the likes of Ayrton Senna, James Hunt, Mika Häkkinen and Kimi Räikkönen.
A positive upturn after a challenging FP3
The papaya driver was not expecting such a positive result. In fact, he suffered through a very difficult FP3 session, during which he didn’t manage to sign a competitive lap time. In addition to his practise woes, his pole lap was not spotless because of the still very mixed and damp track conditions.
Norris described the hardships of track evolution encountered during qualifying for the F1 Las Vegas GP, and the challenge it posed in assessing the best tyre management and choice.
“Pretty nasty. Probably some of the worst—not like the worst conditions, you know, it’s been wetter. It’s just, it feels like you may as well have been out on slicks, to be honest. It was so slippery, difficult.
“The amount of wheelspin you have in places, how easy it was to lock tyres, the white lines, the yellow lines—just everything was pretty tough. So, yeah, even more satisfied with the end result because of how tricky it was out there today. But some good laps just to keep it controlled, keep it in a good manner through Q1, through Q2, and obviously risk a little bit more into Q3, and it paid off. So, very happy.”
Tricky sections
Norris went into further detail about the specific sections he found more challenging during his pole attempts in the very narrow street circuit.
“In 1, 2, 3… I mean, the braking zones are all quite tricky. Obviously, it’s a long lap, and then you get to quite a very difficult last corner—Turn 14—big stop, easy to lock the front tyre. It’s easy to just want to brake five metres later, ten metres later. And then you’ve got the kerbs. A lot of people crashed there and made mistakes, spun.”
Additionally, he admitted he believed to had put himself out of pole contention, as he had almost made contact with the wall in the final corners of his last attempt.
“I was close to doing it on my final lap. There were just even bits around the track that were quite weird—some bits felt actually OK, some bits felt just shockingly slippery and difficult to manage, to control the car, the wheelspin—everything. So just, yeah, random bits. But the big braking zone, especially the final corner on a quali lap, is the most daunting, I would say.”
Unexpected track time during Qualifying
Not only the championship leader was surprised by his pole as it was achieved in not for faint of heart conditions, he was also impressed by the little number of yellow and red flags. In spite of multiple drivers hitting the wall, with Albon destroying his rear suspension during Q1, no red flags were issued.
“It was tricky, especially because there’s always a risk of yellow flags and also red flags here. I’m surprised there wasn’t more, in a way, because of the difficulty today. But we weren’t out near the front, so I was pretty happy to wait a little bit longer down the end of the pit lane and just have some cleaner air, stay out of the way of everyone else behind, try and avoid as much as possible the yellow flags and take that risk element out of it and just let me put some laps in, build the confidence in the car.”
Key to his pole was timing
Norris highlighted the importance of being in the right place at the right time to secure pole position for the F1 Las Vegas GP.
“Of course, I was, I think, the only one who got one more lap at the end of the run, and that worked out perfectly. I think we were still pretty good before, and then to get the timing of—I think we did like push-push, push-cool-push or something at the end.
“So, yeah, just making sure the battery was ready, making sure the tyres were in good condition. And obviously, having that chance to go one more lap than everyone else worked out perfectly. Never easy on a day like today, but everything worked well.”
Considering that wet tracks are not his preferred conditions for a smooth weekend, the young driver in his seventh Formula 1 season was glad to be proven wrong during the earlier session to set the grid.
Asked on the track sections where he has a better feeling with his MCL39 compared to the past year, he was positive.
“Just everywhere in Las Vegas. Every corner, every straight, every bumpI proved myself wrong. The expectation was pretty low coming into this weekend, even on Wednesday in the press conference. I wasn’t expecting too much. But they were definitely not high.
“So for us to show some good performance yesterday, this morning as well in practice before some of the issues we had—I already felt pretty good and quite confident that if it was going to be a dry quali, we would be challenging. It would be tight, but we could be challenging for pole.”
A better challenger compared to McLaren’s previous race car
Obviously, now the Brit is ecstatic with such an unexpected result. However, after such a tricky final practise session, where neither him nor teammate Oscar Piastri had even managed to sign a positive lap , ending the hour in P20, he was not feeling as confident when he stepped foot on track.
“So when I woke up from my nap before quali, I wasn’t too happy seeing it was raining, because it’s always just a bit more chaos. And, yeah, never the most confident over the course of this year—especially the beginning—with these conditions, with the car. It can be quite tricky at times. But from the first lap I actually felt pretty good in the car, and that turned into a good result.”
The race will be a completely different challenge
Tomorrow is going to be a new day for Norris, set to start the F1 Las Vegas GP from pole. Taking into the account the lack of proper lap time in dry conditions, it’s definitely going to be a more challenging experience, even if the conditions might be more in his favour.
“Yeah, quite a bit. I don’t think I’ve done more than four laps in a row. So I’ve got no idea on stints and things like that. Many questions, probably for everyone. I’m sure not many people have run the Hard tyre, that kind of thing. I don’t really know. The pace has been strong—has been better than it was last year, that’s for sure.
“So I expect to be fighting up there, but with Max, with Carlos—you know, they could both be pushing as good opportunities for them. So yeah, it’s going to be a long race. Many things can happen. Obviously, if it’s dry, a bit more simple for everyone, I think. But I’m in the best position I can be, so happy for now.”
