Norris bullish on Vegas pole after ‘better feeling’ opening day

Lando Norris arrived in Las Vegas expecting a challenge. What he found instead was a McLaren transformed from the team that faltered so heavily here last season – enough to leave the championship leader talking openly, and confidently, about a shot at pole position.

Thursday’s running was far from straightforward. Two red flags, track maintenance delays and light rain meant drivers completed only a fraction of their planned mileage. Yet amid the chaos, Norris thrived.

After finishing sixth in FP1, he surged to the top of the timesheets in the disrupted FP2 with an effort made all the more encouraging given McLaren’s painful struggles at the venue in 2024.

“[It’s] always tricky here,” Norris said after climbing out of the car. “I think we have a better feeling in the car than what we had last year, so that’s a positive, and that was felt I would say already from Lap 1 today.

“Some good feeling, of course not a lot of running in the end, not really any high-fuel running, but the pace clearly is there.”

Norris stressed that the competitive picture remains hazy thanks to the limited running: “I think it’s pretty tight between a lot of people, and many people didn’t even get their laps in.

“Apart from that, yeah, I think we made some steps forward from FP1 to FP2, and hopefully we can just do some more from FP2 to FP3.”

And when pressed on what he expects for the rest of the weekend, Norris didn’t hesitate. “I mean, we’re fighting for pole.”

Stella Cautious but Encouraged

While Norris radiated confidence, team principal Andrea Stella offered a slightly more tempered assessment of McLaren’s prospects – tempered, but far from pessimistic.

“This track requires intense work to fine-tune the car and find the right reference points for the drivers,” Stella explained. “It is therefore important to try to make the most of all the time available in Free Practice, which only happened today in the first of the two sessions.”

Like many teams, McLaren missed out on valuable data thanks to the disrupted FP2.

“In the second one, light rain at the beginning and then a couple of Red Flags in the final part made the work of all the teams much more disrupted,” Stella said. “In particular, the information that is normally gathered during long runs is missing.”

• Read also: Piastri sees ‘plenty of positives’ despite tricky opening day in Vegas

Still, Stella sees unquestionable potential – potential that Norris already seems to be tapping into.

“For our part, we know that there is still work to be done to adjust the setup of the car,” the Italian added.

“We know that the characteristics of the track and the conditions in which we are racing are not the best for us, but we will do our utmost to put the drivers in the best possible position to fully exploit the potential available.”

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