Madrid, Sep 12 (IANS) McLaren driver Lando Norris charged to pole position for the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at the Madring street circuit with a spectacular last-gasp effort, beating Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to the top spot.
With this, Norris clinched his third pole position of the season in the first Qualifying session at the Madring.
In a close conclusion to Q3, the reigning World Champion displaced all of his rivals with a time of 1m 31.824s, mastering the brand-new circuit to clinch his 19th career pole position.
Lewis Hamilton had set himself to provisionally take the top spot after the first runs before he dropped to P4, behind Charles Leclerc and the second Mercedes of George Russell.
Oscar Piastri endured another frustrating deficit to his McLaren teammate as he finished in seventh place, with Liam Lawson, Franco Colapinto and Arvid Lindblad – who had suitably recovered from his earlier crash in FP2 – rounding out the top 10 qualifiers.
Despite featuring towards the front throughout the weekend, Audi failed to make it into Q3, with Nico Hulkenberg settling for P11 in front of his teammate Gabriel Bortoleto.
Just behind, Esteban Ocon beat his compatriot and last week’s polesitter Pierre Gasly to P13, followed by Racing Bulls’ Yuki Tsunoda and the lead Williams of Alex Albon.
It was a less than satisfactory day for the home crowd as Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso were both eliminated in the opening phase of Qualifying, with the former also set to be investigated for an impeding incident.
They finished the session just ahead of the Cadillac duo of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, who was the driver allegedly blocked by Sainz. Neither Ollie Bearman nor Lance Stroll made it onto the track as Haas were unable to repair the Briton’s car after his FP3 crash, while the Aston Martin driver was restricted to the garage thanks to a suspected water pressure issue.
–IANS
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