Las Vegas GP Qualifying: Lando Norris claims stunning wet-weather pole from Max Verstappen as Lewis Hamilton qualifies last | F1 News

Lando Norris tamed treacherous wet conditions to claim a stunning pole position for a Las Vegas Grand Prix in which he could move one further big step closer towards F1’s world title.

After a downpour ahead of qualifying had left an already-slippery Las Vegas Strip Circuit absolutely sodden, with rain continuing to fall into the first knockout session, the in-form Norris ultimately came to the fore when it mattered most on a drying track on intermediate tyres in Q3.

McLaren team-mate and main title rival Oscar Piastri was only fifth.

Pole position changed hands three times after the chequered flag with Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen briefly taking top spot for themselves in turn before the superb Norris beat the latter’s time by 0.3s with a 1:47.934 despite a big slide in his McLaren in the final corners.

“Boy that was stressful, stressful as hell!” a relieved Norris said afterwards.

Verstappen took second ahead of Sainz, who faced no further action in a post-session investigation for an alleged earlier rules infringement, with Mercedes’ George Russell beating Piastri to fourth.

Piastri trails Norris by 24 points in the championship, with Verstappen 49 points back. Only 58 points will remain across the season’s final two events over the next fortnight after Sunday’s race on the Las Vegas Strip.

Lewis Hamilton qualified 20th and last in a new low for his difficult first season at Ferrari with the seven-time champion struggling for grip in a particularly-treacherous Q1.

It marked the first time in Briton’s 19-year F1 career that he had qualified last on outright pace.

Hamilton was joined in early elimination by Williams’ Alex Albon, who damaged his car against the wall, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda.

With Charles Leclerc going on to qualify only ninth in the sole-remaining Ferrari in Q3, Racing Bulls cashed in on the struggles of some of the grids bigger names to take sixth with Liam Lawson and eighth with Isack Hadjar.

Fernando Alonso was seventh for Aston Martin, who had run strongly with both cars early on in Q1, while Pierre Gasly continued a fine weekend so far to give Alpine 10th.

Norris finds something special again for third straight pole

Having dominated the previous two weekends in Mexico and Brazil to take control of the world championship fight with only three races left, Norris showed further evidence in Q3 on Saturday that he has found an extra gear in performance just when needed most this season.

The streets of Sin City had not been kind to McLaren in its first two years on the calendar, with neither driver qualifying nor finishing higher than sixth, but Norris suggested they might prove a more competitive proposition this time around when he topped the dry, albeit disrupted, second practice session on Friday.

The heavy rain which arrived ahead of qualifying initially did not appear to play to the team’s favour, with Norris only 13th fastest when conditions were at their worst in Q3.

But he was fourth as the track started to dry in Q2 and then, once on intermediates into the pole shootout, was easily the man to beat.

So much so that Norris was 0.9s up on Verstappen’s then-benchmark time through the first two sectors of his final lap, although the need for a correction on the steering wheel when the back of his McLaren snapped away from him through the tricky penultimate series of corners left him wondering whether he had ultimately done enough to head the grid.

“Oh! No one else got a lap or what?” Norris asked in surprise over team radio when told by his race engineer that pole was his.

Norris then said in his post-session interview: “I knew the first two sectors were good. It’s so slippery out there. As soon as you hit the kerb a bit wrong, like I did, you snap one way, lose the car the other way. Close to hitting the wall!

“Good enough for P1. Not the nicest of conditions but I’m happy it stopped raining and we could get a good qualifying on.”

What went wrong for 20th-placed Hamilton?

Las Vegas was the scene of Hamilton’s last podium finish in F1, 12 months and 24 races ago, but chances of a repeat are all-but over already after he set the slowest time of Q1.

The Ferrari driver’s weekend had started promisingly in the largely cool and dry conditions of practice, but his pace fell away badly on the extreme wet tyres in Q1.

“The first set of tyres obviously didn’t work for us, and I was just struggling to generate the heat in the tyres for some reason,” he said.

“It’s a shame because the guys did such a great job. The car was feeling awesome in P3 and I really, really felt like we had good pace, then obviously the rain came. Not a lot to say really from there, to be honest.”

A yellow flag in the final sector compromised the end of what proved his quickest lap, with Hamilton then thinking he had run out of time for a further final attempt when, in actual fact, the official timing screens showing he had just crossed the line in time to start a final attempt.

“Coming into [turn] 17 there was yellow flags so I had a lift and when I came to the line it was red,” he said.

Sky Sports F1’s Las Vegas GP schedule

Sunday November 23
12.15am: F1 Academy Race Two
2.30am: Grand Prix Sunday: Las Vegas GP build-up*
4am: THE LAS VEGAS GRAND PRIX*
6am: Chequered Flag: Las Vegas GP reaction*
7am: Ted’s Notebook*

*also live on Sky Sports Main Event

Formula 1’s thrilling title race continues with the Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime