McLaren has had a automotive that each drivers have admitted has been tough to drive in 2026, however Lando Norris revealed he realized “fairly rapidly” the best way to extract essentially the most from it within the moist.
The Brit stormed to pole place for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, in a qualifying session fraught with rainfall, that truncated working for over an hour.
Norris utilised essentially the most of his MCL40 package deal, that has not been the simplest to drive this season, to grab high spot from George Russell, who regarded set to take P1.
It’s back-to-back poles at Interlagos for Norris, who admitted that this 12 months’s got here underneath fairly totally different circumstances.
“Effectively, it’s been a protracted day; it’s been a fantastic qualifying,” he stated to Sky Sports activities F1. “Clearly, to be on pole once more right here two years in a row [sic] is…totally different circumstances to final 12 months, however I’m very completely satisfied.”
Norris continued: “It wasn’t simple circumstances on the market, particularly when you realize it’s going to rain much more. It was about getting two laps in at the start, not making any errors, and that’s precisely what we did, so it’s been an excellent day.”
With Russell’s grid penalty factored in, 2025 champion Norris might be joined on the entrance row by the sister Mercedes of the brand new World Champion, Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Norris acknowledged that the pole coincided along with his first true working of the MCL40 within the moist this season, and located one thing in it that he might rapidly adapt to because the rain fell.
“This was my first time driving the automotive within the moist, so I feel I figured it out fairly rapidly,” he stated. “It was robust: Moist, Inters, all totally different tyres.
“It was very windy as effectively on the final couple of laps, so it’s actually day for studying for me and good to take into tomorrow.”
Timing proved decisive. Norris’s pole lap was slower than Russell’s greatest in Q2, however it was set within the phase that counted, with Russell caught behind the Williams of Alex Albon. When the drivers obtained one other probability to enhance, the rain had returned with a all drivers aborting lap and returning to the pits.
Norris concluded: “It was about getting two laps in at the start, not making any errors, and that’s precisely what we did.”
READ MORE – Lando Norris takes rain-sodden Sao Paulo pole as surprises take over F1 grid