Norris admits epic run to Vegas pole was ‘stressful as hell’

Lando Norris lit up a drenched Las Vegas Strip to take a third straight pole position on Friday night, but the McLaren star made no attempt to disguise just how chaotic the session felt from inside the cockpit.

In his words, the run that put him top of the timesheets was “stressful, stressful as hell!”

The Briton arrived in Nevada riding momentum from back-to-back wins in Mexico City and São Paulo, holding a 24-point championship lead over team-mate Oscar Piastri. But qualifying offered up a fresh kind of test: the first ever wet session at the Las Vegas street circuit, and one that forced everyone into survival mode.

A Session on a Knife Edge

Norris’s night began badly. When Q1 was at its most waterlogged, he could do no better than 13th, skating through rivers of standing water as grip evaporated corner by corner. But as conditions slowly improved, he rose to the challenge.

When it mattered, his lap of 1m 47.934s was a statement – three tenths clear of Max Verstappen and decisive enough to keep the reigning champion off the front row.

“It was stressful, stressful as hell! I didn’t know no-one else was going to get a lap after me,” Norris admitted. “I felt like the first two sectors were good but it’s so slippery out there.

“As soon as you hit the kerb a little bit wrong like I did, you snap one way, you lose the car the other way, close to hitting the wall but good enough for P1 today.”

The McLaren charger admitted that the near-misses were constant.

“Not the nicest of conditions but I’m happy it stopped raining and we could get a good qualifying.”

Norris even revealed his pre-session mood had been decidedly calmer than what followed.

“You need a good car to do it first of all. The team did a good job. To be honest I was having a little nap before quali and I was expecting it to be dry. I woke up and I saw it was raining and I thought, ‘Oh c***, this is not going to go well!’”

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From that moment, he said, every corner felt like a potential disaster.

“No-one’s ever driven around here in the rain before, it’s difficult to know what to expect, and after Q1 every corner you felt like you could crash and it could easily be over. One step at a time – Q1, Q2, Q3, all tough, so more rewarding a day like this because it was a tricky one.”

Dry Race, Unknown Picture

The qualifying heroics were one thing. Predicting the race? Far more complicated.

Las Vegas has not traditionally suited McLaren, and a disrupted Friday meant long-run data was almost nonexistent for every team. Even with the MCL39’s generally dominant 2025 form, Norris isn’t overconfident.

“The pace has been good all weekend. I think it was going to be good in the dry, I honestly didn’t expect to be as good as I was then in the wet,” he said.

“Very happy with that, but there’s a lot of unknowns tomorrow. No-one’s really done much high-fuel running, no-one’s really done more than a 10-lap stint. I’m sure it’s going to be an interesting race, especially with Max up there.”

Stressful as hell or not, Norris now starts Saturday from the best seat in the house – pole in Las Vegas, with a championship on the line and a storm he’s already survived.

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