MADRID: Formula One champion Lando Norris produced a wonder lap from out of nowhere to put McLaren on pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix at the new Madring circuit on Saturday.

Mercedes’s 20-year-old championship leader Kimi Antonelli, beaten by a mere 0.011 of a second in the afternoon sunshine, joined the ecstatic Briton on the front row with Max Verstappen third fastest for Red Bull and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton fourth.

“I’m shocked. I’m a little bit surprised to be here now,” exclaimed Norris in his first comments to the crowd after getting out of the car.

“It was probably one of the best laps I’ve done ever in my career.

“It was just one of those laps where everything came together. I had a good idea of what I wanted to do but it was whether my brain let me do it on the last lap and everything pretty much worked perfectly.”

Norris clocked 1:31.824, with Antonelli on 1:31.835. It was the champion’s 19th career pole and third of the season.

Norris had been only sixth after the first flying laps of the final phase, when Hamilton set the pace and appeared to be heading for his first pole since 2023, and was only fifth and seventh, respectively, in the previous two phases.

Antonelli then went fastest, with the Mercedes first out of the pitlane for the final effort, but Norris secured the top slot with an inch-perfect, wall-skimming effort when it mattered most.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc qualified fifth with Mercedes’s George Russell, Antonelli’s closest rival but 66 points behind after 13 rounds, sixth.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was seventh, ahead of Red Bull’s Liam Lawson and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto, with Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad completing the top 10.

Oliver Bearman did not take part in qualifying after crashing his Haas heavily right at the end of the final practice session.

The Briton will still start ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, who failed to set a time due to a suspected water pressure problem.

Spanish drivers Carlos Sainz (Williams) and two-time champion Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) will also start towards the back on Sunday, in 17th and 18th places, respectively.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2026