(L-R) Red Bull Racing’s Dutch driver Max Verstappen, McLaren’s British driver Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Spanish driver Carlos Sainz Jr., pose after the qualifying session for the USA Formula One Grand Prix on the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, on October 19, 2024. – Norris, won the pole position with Verstappen second and Sainz third. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP)
Lando Norris oozed satisfaction on Saturday after beating series leader and three-time champion Max Verstappen to pole position for Sunday’s United States Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver clocked a best lap in a single minute and 32.330 seconds to outpace his Red Bull rival, who leads the title race by 54 points with six races remaining, by 0.031 seconds.
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“It was an exquisite lap,” said Norris, after claiming his first American pole and his fourth pole in five races as he seeks to overhaul Verstappen.
READ: F1: Lando Norris cruises to victory at Singapore Grand Prix
Lando’s fourth pole in five races! 👏#F1 #USGP pic.twitter.com/0VzjBJjsdo
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 20, 2024
“I used to be not going to go much quicker than I did. If you just do a lap and you think that ‘rattling, it’s going to be tough to beat that’ … I put every little thing out on the road and it’s what we would have liked to do.
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“We’ve been on the back foot just about the entire weekend. We’ve not had the pace of the Ferraris or the Red Bulls, so I needed to do something and today I did that so yeah, a cool lap and a pleasant strategy to start the race!”
He added that he enjoyed the feeling of the speed experienced on the Circuit of the Americas.
“Inside you’re like ‘rattling, that is fast’ and it’s exciting and it just gives you a great feeling, it’s bumpy and it’s fast, especially sector one so it puts a smile in your face, and definitely ending quickest puts the most important smile in your face too.”
He said it had been a tricky weekend for McLaren.
“A troublesome day, a tricky weekend for us, but we modified quite a bit, I feel we reviewed every little thing we could and we made the improvements we would have liked to make, so perhaps we weren’t the quickest automotive on the market today.
“Carlos (Sainz) said he was going to go quicker, Max (Verstappen) said he was going to go quicker so I’m lucky but I’ll take it.”
READ: F1: Lando Norris beats Max Verstappen for pole in Singapore
Verstappen said: “On the primary lap in Q3, I lost quite a little bit of time. That’s unlucky, but I knew we had one other run, but then unfortunately, I couldn’t finish the lap – otherwise, I feel we had a very good shot.”
He added that winning the morning sprint race had given confidence back to Red Bull as he and the team aim to finish an eight-race winless run dating back to the Spanish Grand Prix in May.
“It seemed that we were competitive,” he said. “So we made some minor changes on the automotive, which felt nice. I hope that also can be a positive for tomorrow.”
