Spanish Grand Prix: Norris on pole

Cloudy. Dry. Air +24С, highway +38…36С

The Barcelona circuit highlights the best cars, perfectly aligning the pack based on their performance during qualifying. There is an astonishing statistic associated with this: in the last 20 Grand Prix at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 15 victories have been achieved by drivers starting from pole position.

Although overtaking here is difficult, it is possible and the strategy is usually very varied, but in Barcelona it is almost impossible for a slightly slower car to stay ahead of a slightly faster one. The teams brought many new products to the stage in the hope of changing the balance of power.

Last year, Verstappen led all sessions of the Spanish weekend. This time, Norris and Hamilton showed the best time on Friday, and Sainz was the fastest on Saturday morning.

One of the unpleasant moments of Saturday was a fire in the McLaren camper; one of the team members was taken to hospital as a precaution.

Pirelli traditionally brought a ‘hard’ three compounds to the podium – C1, C2 and C3 in the Hard, Medium and Soft roles. Perez went into the session knowing he would lose three places at the start of tomorrow’s race due to the incident in Canada.

In the first session everyone went to Soft. On the first attempt, Leclerc set the best time with 1:12.257. Stroll almost collided with Sargent, who had slowed down but stayed on track – the stewards took note of the incident.

The leaders abandoned the second attempt, the rest improved and eventually Hamilton topped the timesheet with 1:12.143.

Magnussen, Tsunoda, Ricciardo, Albon and Sargent dropped out of further competition.

In the second session on the first attempt, Verstappen topped the timesheet with 1:11.653.

Max refused the second attempt, his result remained the best. Alonso, Bottas, Hulkenberg, Stroll and Zhou did not qualify for the final.

In the final Verstappen was again the fastest on the first attempt with 1:11.673. Piastri’s good fast lap was canceled due to leaving the track.

On the second attempt, Piastri flew into the gravel, ruining the attempt and running out of time. Verstappen recorded 1:11.403, but Norris was two hundredths faster – 1:11.383.

Lando Norris won qualifying in Barcelona to take the second pole position of his career – his first since Sochi ’21. Max Verstappen will share the front row with him, Hamilton and Russell will start from the second row, and Leclerc and Sainz will start from the third row.

Qualifying results