Lando Norris admitted he was puzzled by his blistering pole position lap in qualifying for the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix, likening it to the one he set at Monaco.
The Brit powered to top spot with a lap over two tenths faster than second-placed Charles Leclerc, and nearly six over team-mate Oscar Piastri, who qualified seventh.
Norris appeared to be in contention for pole all the way through at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, but his final run was mesmeric in its execution.
So much so that he conveyed his surprise over the radio on the cool-down lap. “What a lap! Even I don’t know how I did that,” he incredulously said.
Following qualifying, Norris indicated bafflement at how he was able to set a lap that he admitted “put a pretty big smile on my face.”
“That’s the confusing thing,” he said to media including Motorsport Week.
“I mean, it was, obviously it was an incredible lap. I pushed the braking everywhere, I pushed the high speed a bit more and all those things.
“But, yeah, I don’t have a delta, so I don’t know if I was up, if I was down, if it was good, bad, whatever.
“There was still a couple of little places where, you know, I thought I messed up a touch. And didn’t get the best exits, like out of [Turn] 6. But the rest of it felt pretty decent.
“And I was happy, but I thought I’d be more like a 15.9, 15.8. I thought if I’d get ahead of Charles, I’d be pretty happy. So when I saw a 15.5 on my dash, it put a pretty big smile on my face.
“Because it was one of those laps, everything just came together in terms of feeling. It was very natural and similar to my lap in Monaco.
“So, a good feeling, because it’s been a while, it’s not that often this year I get that feeling in this car. Even with how quick it is. But, yeah, happy because of this.”
‘More risks’ helped Norris make sizeable last-lap gain
Norris’ lap was even more staggering in its reality, given that his first run was a whole six tenths off it, leaving him to convey further surprise at his eventual time.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know. I have to go and see on the data,” he said.
“Like I said, I just pushed the braking in a few little places a bit more. Took a couple little bit more risks in the high speed.
“But, yeah, quite often the laps that I don’t really know what’s happened or how it’s happened are the laps I do the best. Yeah, like I said on the radio.
“Like the less I know, the better I do normally on my quali laps. So, it was one of them. But, yeah, six tenths, I was surprised, like I said.
“I got a bit worried Q3 run one when Charles did a 15.9 I was like, damn, this is a pretty impressive lap. So, yeah, like I said, nice one as well, 15.5.”
The run to the first corner has provided much drama and incident in the past, something that Norris explained would be considered in his post-qualifying debrief.
“That’s tonight. That’s with my engineers and my team around me to review things and see what’s best,” he added.
“Of course, you want a good start and go from there. But it’s a long run.
“I don’t know what our straight line speed is like compared to the Ferrari. In general, I think we’ve been a touch down. So we’ll wait and see.”
READ MORE – Oscar Piastri admits huge F1 Mexico GP qualifying gap to Lando Norris ‘a bit of a mystery’
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