Immediately after qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday, Lando Norris said he needed a “perfect lap” to beat Max Verstappen. Norris beat the Red Bull driver by just 0.2 seconds to secure his second career pole position and put himself in position to claim his second win of the season.
after a while FIA press conferenceThe McLaren driver went further, explaining that he would have to “give it his all” on the final lap if he wanted to beat Verstappen.
“I mean, we’re always close. I don’t think the top five have ever been more than a tenth apart in practice.” Norris explained“So I expected a similar result and I think I was right. Max was probably 2.5 seconds ahead of everybody else every time, both in Q1 and Q2, when we did that. And we did three laps – three runs, four runs in total at the end – so four laps in the whole qualifying. But each time, Max made a little bit of a mistake, and a lot of them were fast runs.
“So I knew I had to give it my all on the last lap and I needed to take 200, 300, 400 seconds off Max and I managed to do it. So it was worth the risk and it was great to have it all work out when I needed it most.”
Norris spoke at length about how good it felt to be in that moment, on that stage and to deliver that rap.
“So I guess I’ll probably come back and [Andrew Jarvis]My engineers would say I did something wrong, but the car and [tires]”We’re really pushing to put it all together,” Norris explained, “You could do half once and the other half again or maybe mix it up, but it’s very difficult to get everything to the limit and I think any driver will tell you the same, so it’s very rewarding when you do it and even more gratifying when you get pole position because you do it.”
“Yeah, it feels great. Pole position is always a good feeling and this is the second pole position of my career. I’ve had two pole positions in sprint races but I don’t really think of it as a pole position. So, yeah, this is the second pole position of my career. It’s been a long time since Sochi so yeah, it feels great.” Norris continued.“So it was a great lap.
“Honestly, that was my best lap. I put the whole lap together well, I got a good slipstream and if you put all the pieces together, it was probably the best corner of the lap. Max had a bit of a lead in Q1 and Q2, so I knew I had to be perfect in Q3 to get there, and that’s exactly what I did. So I’m very happy to have probably my best lap so far.”
We analysed the data today and, as outlined earlier, Norris earned pole position with a strong performance in Sectors 1 and 2. Although Verstappen was stronger on the straights, particularly the long straight out of Turn 14 and back to the start/finish line, Norris built up a lead in the first half of the track and Verstappen was unable to make up the gap.
Photo: Chris Greisen/Getty Images
Getting pole position is one thing, but can Norris win on Sunday?
The McLaren driver is confident it can be done.
“I’m not worried,” Norris added, “I’m excited. It’s a long way to Turn 1, it’s one of those places you probably don’t want to start from pole position, but for us it’s an opportunity to go out and try to win.”
“We haven’t done a lot of long runs, we’ve done a little bit and I think we’ve been close, as always. I don’t think the car will be that much faster tomorrow. I think that eight cars in total – Mercedes, us, Red Bull and Ferrari – can probably get pole position today and have a chance to win the race tomorrow.” continuation “So I’m just going to try to minimize my mistakes and put in another good race like I usually do, just like I did today,” Norris said.
He may need to “give it his all” again to pull off a win on Sunday.
