Lando Norris Drives His McLaren to Thrilling Pole Position in Singapore

Lando Norris kept the ball rolling for McLaren after he set the fastest lap in qualifying to secure yet another pole position ahead of Max Verstappen in P2. McLaren solidified themselves as the constructors championship leaders after Azerbaijan. With pole position Norris looks to extend that lead for the first time this season as Red Bull continues to struggle to find answers to McLaren’s late season surge. Verstappen has been very open about his concerns surrounding his Red Bull. However, this weekend he seems to have turned a different cheek. Its clear that this weekend is shaping up to be a battle between Norris and Verstappen at the front.

P3 was a bit of a surprise as Lewis Hamilton emerged as the third fast driver to secure a second row start in tomorrow’s race. Hamilton said, “We’ve been moving around on balance all weekend and they’ve put in a big shift to get the car into a good place. We are now starting from a solid place to fight for the podium tomorrow. We don’t know exactly where our race pace will be compared to others, but with the changes we made overnight, it felt like we had improved since Friday. We’ll be giving it everything on Sunday.”

The Top Three Finishers from Qualifying Share Their Thoughts on the Session

Lando Norris

“It was tough in Qualifying today, I was finding it difficult to go quicker and it put me under a little bit of pressure, especially with just one lap to get it right. The car felt good though, it’s been strong all weekend and when you have that, you’re confident, you can go out and push to get the lap time you need. So, I did the job I had to do to thank the team for their hard work and I’m excited to see what we can do tomorrow.”

Max Verstappen

“I am very happy with second today and it is great to start the race on the front row tomorrow. Huge credit goes to the Team for all of their hard work; they came up with some great solutions and made a lot of changes to the car overnight and it made a huge difference.

The car was a lot nicer to drive, we could attack the corners a bit more and we really maximised our performance today. I had a better feeling with the car and kept on improving it as yesterday was very tough. On paper, this is not a good track on the calendar for us, and we do have our limitations on the pace, so this gives us a lot of hope in the coming races that we can do well. To come out and finish where we did today is an amazing result for qualifying.”

Lewis Hamilton

“I’ve been working really hard to improve my qualifying performances and to get myself back up at the front on a Saturday. The car came alive today and we had one of our strongest Saturdays in a while. That was a great feeling. Having just one effort in Q3 after the red flag was tricky, and there was perhaps a little bit more left in the car, but overall, I am really grateful for what we achieved today.”

Qualifying Results from Singapore