Lando Norris lost “three tenths” on way to shock Madring F1 pole

Setembro 12, 2026 lojamais44@gmail.com

“That’s a masterpiece.”

After Lando Norris snatched pole position away from Kimi Antonelli by a mere 0.011s at the Spanish Grand Prix, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella was both ecstatic and panegyrical towards his driver.

At no point during the weekend had the papaya cars actually looked quick enough to be in the mix for glory. Mercedes had topped all practice sessions from Ferrari; in Q1 and in Q2, the Silver Arrows were fighting Red Bull for the top spot. But McLaren was always a couple of tenths in arrears.

Then there was that Q3 lap. Norris was just sixth after his first attempt, 0.446s down on pacesetter Lewis Hamilton, but improved by 0.701s on his second attempt – just enough to edge ahead of a seemingly untouchable Antonelli.

But he didn’t expect it – especially after making a mistake in the final corner, having ever so slightly lost the rear end. “Sorry, I fucked up man,” Norris told race engineer Will Joseph. The latter told him to wait for all cars to finish, implying he had a shot at pole, to which Norris retorted: “Fucking idiot.”

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

“It wasn’t your best final corner, but it’s still pole, so well done,” Joseph said. It took a while for Norris to actually believe he was not being pranked.

“By the last corner, I just had a bit of a, I don’t know, a little moment,” the British driver went on to explain. “I think I got a bit excited in the car and I just overpushed the entry and, honestly, I thought I was in the wall. So, yeah, luckily a short run to Turn 1.

“But the lap really was just perfect, from good exits, good kerbs, just getting all the little things that are very important around here correct. And I did that only on my last lap and it all worked out.”

That lap was described by Stella as “one of the most impressive laps that [he] has witnessed, as somebody that watches telemetry in 450 grands prix”.

As a point of comparison, Oscar Piastri qualified down in seventh, 0.470s adrift of his team-mate.

“We were not honestly performing to the level of scoring a pole position,” Stella continued. “At no stage during the weekend we demonstrated that the car was performing at the level of being the best car. We were lacking quite significantly in the first sector, low-speed [corners] and kerbing, and for the drivers it was a very difficult car to nail a lap. We saw that there were spells of potential, but it’s always very difficult to put it together.

“The most impressive thing is the fact that it’s a pole position despite having lost three-and-a-half tenths in the last quarter, which means that it would have been a pretty convincing pole position without this issue.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images

“At the same time, this issue is a consequence of pushing to the level that Lando managed to push. But today everyone will have pushed the limits.

“The thing that makes the lap unique, when you look especially at the telemetry, is the precision, the braking, the speed you carry in entry, the striking of the kerb, the going on power. Everything is executed with a pretty unique level of precision.

“For me, that’s if anything the main attribute that I would associate to this lap: just incredible precision in the metre-by-metre execution.”

According to Stella, as previously mentioned, Norris’ driving error was directly related to how hard he pushed in the remainder of the lap.

“He just paid the price of the fact that the lap was coming, like, one second faster than any other lap, therefore there was quite a lot more that was extracted from the tyres,” the Italian added. “I mean, the tyres were tired and somehow Lando did not take this into account and he entered the corner with the same impetus that he had in some other corners.

“He oversteered in entry, and this means that he loses completely the racing line, and like I said, he lost more than three tenths. It’s nothing calculated; if anything, he’s not taking enough into account that the tyres were tired.

“I don’t think he knew [he was going to be in trouble]. I think he just was in attacking mode, but it was a bit too much for what the tyres had left.”