McLaren’s Lando Norris beat title rival Max Verstappen’s Red Bull to pole position at the United States Grand Prix with what he said was “the best lap of my career”.
Norris was helped by Mercedes driver George Russell crashing late in the session, which prevented any driver improving on their second laps.
Norris had been 0.031 seconds quicker than Verstappen on their first laps, but the Dutchman had started his final lap much better than the Briton, only for both to have to abort.
Although luck played its part, the result was just what Norris needed after Verstappen won the sprint race earlier in the day.
With Norris finishing third behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, Verstappen extended his championship lead by two points to 54.
That made Norris’ task in the championship even tougher – he needed to take an average of nearly nine points per race out of Verstappen for the remaining six grands prix of the season to beat him to the title.
By taking pole position, Norris has given himself an opportunity to claw back some of that gap in the grand prix, although Verstappen’s pace has looked formidable all weekend after Red Bull introduced some upgrades on to their car.
McLaren had been struggling in comparison but Norris excelled himself to go fastest on the first runs before Russell’s accident confirmed his pole.
“It was a beautiful lap,” Norris said. “I was not going to go much quicker than I did.
“When you just do a lap and you think it’s going to be tough to beat… I put everything on the line, I needed to do it.
“We’ve not had the pace of the Ferraris or Red Bulls so I had to do something, and I did that.
“It was a very good lap. I can probably say quite confidently the best of my career.”
Both Norris and Verstappen made mistakes at Turn 19 on their first laps. Norris had a slide, forcing him to catch the rear, while Verstappen had to lift after missing the apex.
Verstappen was then 0.2secs quicker than Norris in the first sector on their second runs – and Norris was slower there than on his first run – before they both had to abort.
Verstappen said: “On the first lap in Q3 I lost quite a bit of time there. I knew we had another run but unfortunately I couldn’t finish the lap, but that’s how it goes. At least the potential was there to be first, so that’s very good.”
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri took fifth, 0.620secs slower than Norris, while Russell was still sixth despite his crash.
For team-mate Lewis Hamilton it was a terrible day. The seven-time champion qualified 19th, Mercedes saying he had “messy balance and front locking”.
Why were McLaren struggling?
Olympic pole vault champion and world record holder Mondo Duplantis presented Lando Norris with his pole position awardNorris’ pole was his fourth in the past five races, while Verstappen has not been fastest in qualifying since the Belgian Grand Prix in July, when he was demoted by a penalty for using excessive engine parts.
Norris has also won two of the past four races, with team-mate Piastri one of the other two.
Norris said he “didn’t have an easy answer” to explain the switch in performance this weekend.
He pointed out that although he dominated at the last race in Singapore and the Netherlands, Piastri’s victory in Baku came about because the Australian “drove better than the others”, adding: “So if we just go back two races we were not the quickest car. That’s our version of events.
What happened to Mercedes?
