Norris ‘shocked’ by pole position in Madrid as he reflects on ‘one of the best laps I’ve done ever’

Lando Norris admitted that he was “shocked” by his pole position in Qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix, with the Briton hailing the performance as “one of the best laps I’ve done ever in my career”.

The start of the weekend had not gone entirely smoothly for Norris, the World Champion having missed out on running during Friday’s second practice session following a gearbox issue on his car.

Things went better on Saturday, however, culminating in a surge to pole in Q3 with a lap time of 1m 31.824s, which put Norris 0.011s clear of championship leader Kimi Antonelli – a showing that even the man himself was not expecting.

“I’m shocked,” the McLaren driver said. “I’m a little bit surprised to be here now, but my god it was probably one of the best laps I’ve done ever in my career. Very, very happy, very proud, very happy for the team.

“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.

“I’m just very happy – one of those laps where you look at the lap time at the end and you’re like, ‘Oh, s*** that was pretty good’.”

Reflecting on the feeling of putting such a lap in around the new Madring circuit, Norris explained: “The adrenaline was high on the last lap. It’s just one where you’ve got to relax, just let it all flow.

“It’s easy to get tense around here, and there are a lot of walls that come at you pretty quickly. Honestly I’ve been feeling pretty confident and the car was feeling good, so I felt good out there.

“I just wasn’t doing what I wanted – I wasn’t quite relaxed, and on the last lap just took a good breath and everything kind of came together.

“It was pretty much perfect, bar the last corner – I thought I was in the wall, and I thought the boys were going to have to repair the car tonight. It could have been a little bit better, but nonetheless it was one of the best laps I’ve done.

“Just everything that I wanted to achieve I achieved, and that’s one of moments where you’re kind of in that flow state and it puts a big smile on my face, so I’m happy.”

When asked for his thoughts on Sunday’s race, Norris – who will line up ahead of Antonelli and Max Verstappen – joked: “I don't know, I'm still thinking about my lap!

“I've given myself the best chance for tomorrow. I don't think it's going to be the easiest track to overtake, but it's going to be possible and I've got two pretty quick, pretty good drivers behind me.

“I'm excited – the first race here in Madrid, it's been a pleasure so far. A lot of things can happen. It's a long race, a difficult track, so looking forward to the whole thing.”