The Madring lights up the best Lando Norris, who signs the first ‘pole’ in the history of the circuit

Make way for the world champion so he can show off his crown in Madrid, where this Sunday (15:00; Dazn) he will lead the pack when the lights go out and, if he doesn’t mess up, until he crosses the finish line, 57 laps later. No one saw Lando Norris coming in a Spanish Grand Prix that became difficult for him due to a gearbox failure in his car that left him stuck in the garage during the second free practice. A big problem on a new and relentless circuit like the Madring, hugged by walls and riddled with traps. However, it happens that this type of street circuit is the ideal setting for the best drivers to deliver their best laps, and the one Norris pulled off in the dying moments of the third qualifying session (Q3) was, in his own words, the best of his life. A feat that earned the Bristol boy his third pole position of the season, all of them in the last four stops of the calendar, a momentum that confirms the step forward taken by McLaren in Hungary, before the summer, when they revitalized the papaya car with an update that took effect immediately. The front row will be completed by Kimi Antonelli, who was just 11 thousandths behind and is probably the only one with a slight chance to threaten the British driver’s victory. Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso were eliminated in the first cut (Q1) and will start 17th and 18th, respectively. However, Sainz will finally start from the twentieth grid position after receiving a three-place penalty for blocking a fast lap by Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) during qualifying. This helped Alonso to finally take the 17th spot.

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The massacre that was expected turned out to be nothing when the best drivers in the world hit the track at the most tense moment of the whole weekend. A fiasco they finally avoided flawlessly, without a single red flag interrupting a delightful exchange of blows marked by equality. That impression is backed by the numbers: the top four grid spots will be occupied by different constructors, all separated by only two tenths.

The first lash from Lewis Hamilton was countered by Norris with a practically unbelievable lap, very hard to explain because it wasn’t perfect, despite the great satisfaction it gave the day’s protagonist. “I’m in shock, very surprised. I think it was one of the best laps of my life. I had it clear in my head, but it had to be done,” summarized the Woking team driver, who did everything right until he reached the last corner, where he got the jitters and came very close to crashing into the wall: “It’s easy to lose tenths because the walls are very close. Everything flowed well until the last corner, where I thought I was going to crash.”

On a circuit that looks more like a passageway, Norris has everything in his favor to accumulate his third win in four events and thus confirm McLaren’s comeback, probably the team that best enhances its cars with the championship underway. “We worked a lot on the setup to gain performance in low-speed areas. We thought we had more potential than we were showing, and Lando took advantage of it,” noted Andrea Stella, director of the British team. “The most surprising thing of all is that he took the pole despite the mistake in the last turn, where he lost three tenths,” added the Italian engineer, one of the key pieces in McLaren’s organization, both for his knowledge — he worked with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, among others — and for his calmness.

Formula 1 returns to Madrid 45 years later and presents a race marked by uncertainty. No one knows for sure how the tires will behave or the best strategy, even though the endless pit lane leads to think that a single stop is the most effective plan if we consider the more than 24 seconds lost in the whole operation. “I have given myself the best position for tomorrow [Sunday] and I know we are in a place where it is not easy to overtake,” anticipated Norris, a specialist in races held on such tracks, who opened his win tally in Miami, before also winning in Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Monaco, and Mexico.

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