Lando Norris revealed he was “close” to spinning out during his final Q3 lap that earned him pole position for Formula 1‘s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Norris secured his third consecutive pole position this season during a rain-hit qualifying session at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit on Friday night.
With heavy rainfall in the build-up to qualifying, standing water forced teams to run Q1 and Q2 on the Wet weather tyres.
Tracking running ensured that the top 10 shootout, however, was run on the green-walled Intermediates.
Speaking about his qualifying, which saw him edge Max Verstappen on the front row of the grid, the Briton highlighted the “nasty” conditions he was forced to overcome.
“Pretty nasty. Probably some of the worst, not like the worst conditions. It’s been wetter,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“It feels like you might as well have been out on slicks, to be honest. It was so slippery.
“Difficult, like the amount of wheelspin you have in places, how easy it was to lock tyres, the white lines, and yellow lines.
“Everything was pretty tough. Even more satisfied with the end result because of how tricky it was out there today.
“Some good laps, just to keep it controlled, keep it in a good manner through Q1, through Q2, and obviously risk a little bit more into Q3, and it paid off, so very happy.”
Despite being on provisional pole, the duo of Carlos Sainz and Verstappen took turns to dislodge the McLaren driver on their respective final flyers.
Norris, however, left his final flying effort in Q3 saved for the very end.
Norris posted a mega second sector to be almost a second up on than Verstappen. That said, he crossed the chequered flag only three-tenths ahead.
Norris had lost time at the final sequence of corners, starting with the heavy braking zone of Turn 14. The Briton revealed that he had almost lost his MCL39 coming out of the tricky Turns 15 & 16 chicane – a place that had previously caught out Alex Albon, prompting him to crash out of Q1.
“Between [Turns] 1, 2, 3. The braking zones are all quite tricky. It’s a long lap, and then you get to a very difficult last corner,” he highlighted.
“Turn 14, big stop, easy to lock the front tyres, easy to want to brake five metres later, 10 metres later. Then you’ve got the kerbs. A lot of people crashed there and made mistakes, spun. I was close to doing it on my final lap.
“There was just even bits around the track that was quite weird. Some bits felt actually okay. Some bits felt just shockingly slippery and difficult to manage, to control the car, the wheelspin, everything.”
Norris proves his Las Vegas GP prediction wrong
Coming into the race weekend on the iconic Vegas strip, Norris was outwardly pessimistic about his and McLaren’s weekend chances.
Drawing from the MCL38’s documented struggles at Vegas last year, the Briton was not expecting to fight at the very sharp end of the field.
However, his pace throughout the weekend so far has made him concede that his apprehensions have been proven wrong.
“Just everywhere in Las Vegas. Every corner, every straight, every bump,” he said when asked about the improvement this weekend.
“I proved myself wrong in terms of the expectation was pretty low coming into this weekend. Even on Wednesday on the press conference, I wasn’t expecting too much.
“My expectations were definitely not high. For us to show some good performance yesterday, this morning as well in practice, before some of the issues we had, I already felt pretty good. I actually felt quite confident.”
Building on this, Norris emphatically claimed he would be in contention for the race win – fighting alongside the likes of Red Bull, and Sainz’s Williams
“The pace has been strong. It’s been better than it has been last year, that’s for sure,” he said.
“I expect to be fighting up there, but with Max, with Carlos, I’m sure they’re both going to want to be pushing. It’s got opportunities for them.
“It’s going to be a long race. Many things can happen. Obviously, if it’s dry, a bit more simple for everyone, I think, but in the best position that I can be, so I’m happy for now.”
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