DRIVERS

1 – Lando NORRIS (McLaren)

2 – Kimi ANTONELLI (Mercedes)

3 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull Racing)

PARC FERMÉ INTERVIEWS

(Conducted by David Coulthard)

Q: Lando, a wave to the crowd. That was a spectacular qualifying session and you secured pole by the massive margin of one hundredth of a second.

Lando NORRIS: Thank you. Yeah, it was. I’m shocked. I’m a little bit surprised to be here now, but my God, it was probably one of the best laps I’ve done ever in my career, so very, very happy, very proud, very happy for the team. Yeah, just one of those laps where everything came together. I had a good idea of what I wanted to do, but it was whether my brain let me do it on the last lap, and everything pretty much worked perfectly. So I’m just very happy. I don’t know, one of those laps where you look at the lap time at the end and you’re like, “Oh s**t, that was pretty good.” So, yeah.

Q: Pretty good is an understatement, and it feels like you’ve come from behind. You didn’t get all the track time you needed on Friday. You’ve been floating around showing that there’s speed in the McLaren, but I don’t think anyone had you nailed for a pole position other than your team and your supporters and all those that love you. But you had to really work for that one hundredth. It’s going to be really difficult to unpack where that was won against Kimi, but take us on the lap of the track. You’ve been saying this is like Monaco on steroids. What’s the adrenaline like?

LN: The adrenaline was high on the last lap. It’s just one where, you know, you’ve just got to relax, just let it all flow. It’s easy to get tense around here and there are a lot of walls that come at you pretty quickly. So honestly, I’ve been feeling pretty confident and the car was feeling good, so I felt good out there. I just wasn’t doing what I wanted. I wasn’t quite relaxed. And on the last lap, just took a good breath and everything kind of came together. So, it was pretty much perfect, bar the last corner. I thought I was in the wall and I thought the boys were going to have to repair the car tonight. So, it could have been a little bit better, but nonetheless, like I said, one of the best laps I’ve done, and just everything that I wanted to achieve, I achieved. And that’s one of the moments where you’re kind of in that flow state, and it puts a big smile on my face. So, I’m happy.

Q: Well, it’s beautiful to see that smile. The increased adrenaline of this racetrack. I think you might have used a small swear word, so apologies to our audience. 

LN: Sorry. I apologise. 

Q: Thank you. Congratulations on that pole. Kimi, one hundredth of a second. You’re fighting for everything out on track. We saw you right on the limit of track limits in a couple of places. A conscious decision to try and get that pole position?

Kimi ANTONELLI: Yeah, I thought it was a good lap, but then this guy just snatched it away, so good job to them. On my side, you know, very intense qualifying, difficult to get the balance right with the track being so hot. But yeah, the lap was pretty clean. Obviously, it’s not easy to put things together on a track like this, which is quite tricky. But overall, I think we did a good job, and now we’ll try to see what we can do tomorrow.

Q: OK, Kimi, thank you very much.

KA: Thank you.

Q: Max, you’re always in the mix, always there battling. A little bit of a gap to the pole position. Was there more in the lap or is that the pace of the car right now?

Max VERSTAPPEN: Yeah, I think for us it was a very good qualifying, so for me to be third I think is a great result. I think we made the car feel quite decent in qualifying and I could attack corners the way I liked. So yeah, for us I think this qualifying is a very good result.

Q: Well done, Max, on that third place finish. Lando, coming back to you one more time. Pole position gives you a clean run to the first corner. Overtaking might be difficult on this racetrack, so a big part of the work is done. Take us towards the race tomorrow.

LN: Yeah, I don’t know, I’m still thinking about my lap. So, I mean, I’ve given myself the best chance for tomorrow. I don’t think it’s going to be the easiest track to overtake, but it’s going to be possible, and I’ve got two pretty quick, pretty good drivers behind me. So, I’m excited. The first race here in Madrid, it’s been a pleasure so far. A lot of things can happen. It’s a long race, a difficult track, so looking forward to the whole thing.

PRESS CONFERENCE 

Q: A very warm welcome to our top three qualifiers for the FIA Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix. In third place, Max Verstappen. In second place, Kimi Antonelli. And taking the 19th pole position of his Formula 1 career, and his third of this 2026 campaign, our pole-sitter Lando Norris. Lando, what a brilliant final lap. Just how did you do that? 

LN: It’s a secret! I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been having a good feeling. Of course, I didn’t get any laps in FP2 yesterday, so I’ve been playing a little bit of catch-up, and there was just a good amount of corners where I kind of knew exactly what I wanted to do. So whether it was the first chicane or the second chicane, it’s just a couple of corners where I kind of knew what the limit was. I just was struggling to get there and just kind of push into it as much as what I wanted before in qualifying. And the last lap, I mean, I improved, what, like seven, seven and a half tenths in one lap. So that’s not something to be proud about, but the fact I still did it in Q3, when it kind of matters most, is the thing I should be proud about. So, it was just a perfect lap. Really, until that point, every corner I did what I wanted to do and I kind of planned out to do. By the last corner, I just had a bit of a, I don’t know, a little moment. I think I got a bit excited in the car and I just over-pushed the entry and, honestly, I thought I was in the wall. So, yeah, luckily a short run to Turn 1. But the lap really was just perfect, from good exits, good kerbs, just getting all the little things that are very important around here correct. And I did that only on my last lap and it all worked out.

Q: Famously, you don’t have a delta on your steering wheel. Could you feel that the lap was a big improvement while you were doing it? 

LN: Seven tenths’ worth? I don’t know. I’m not sure. I certainly knew my Turn 1, Turn 2 was good, better at least, and maybe half a tenth, could say a little bit more, but maybe a tenth. The chicane was just the first time I got it right. I was just always a bit cautious, and I think at times, sometimes when you’re more cautious, it almost is worse in terms of the kerb riding. So, I kind of just hoped for the best in some ways and things came together. And obviously, you know, I’m able to see the speed, so I’m able to see when I’m a little bit better in terms of exit or straight-line speed, and I could just feel it. I don’t need my delta. I can feel when I do what I need to do and when I get a good exit, when I’m on the limit of things. When I’m kind of a bit uncomfortable in corners is normally when it’s going pretty well. So, I could feel it and I feel like I just made all the right things. My feet were doing what I wanted, and that’s normally when things are going well.

Q: New track, new asphalt. How much did the grip levels change during the session?

LN: I think a reasonable amount. It’s hard to put a number on those kinds of things, but, you know, it’s a new track and in qualifying things are always going to progress, especially from Q1 onwards. So, yeah, there’s a little bit of, “Do we try and go out as late as possible to try and have the best track?” You obviously can get some yellow flag risk and things like that. So, we went out in a good position, just clean out-lap, my first one of the whole weekend. I could get the tyres in a good window and things, and everything just really came together from then on. So, it’s been difficult because there’s so many things to learn and to take on board. With the lack of running yesterday, it certainly puts you a little bit on the back foot, but I caught up in the end and that was what’s most important.

Q: Can we talk a little bit more about how that lack of running in FP2 is going to affect you in the Grand Prix tomorrow? How many unknowns are there for you?

LN: A good amount. I’ve not done any running at high fuel yet, really. So, I’ve got to do my homework. I’ve got to see what Oscar did yesterday, see what we can prepare for. But it’s a long race, it’s a new track. You’ve got to know what corners to push, what corners not to push, all of these different things, what the battery’s then going to do. So, there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve got to spend my time doing tonight. So, it’s probably going to be a late one to try and get ahead of the game in some sorts. But the main part of the job was done today, so that’s the bit I’m most happy about.

Q: Very well done to you, Lando. Thank you very much. Kimi, if we could come to you now. A great effort by you as well, so close to pole. Where do you think that last hundredth of a second was lost?

KA: A little bit first chicane and then Turn 13 after the banking. I had a big moment lap one in Q3 and, yeah, just didn’t really have the confidence to push the entry as much again. But overall, it was a clean lap, nothing to say. It’s a track that is not easy to put things together, and of course Lando did a great job, especially catching up after missing FP2 and, yeah, putting things together. So, yeah, obviously it’s a shame to miss out on pole for so close, but we’ll try to do a good race tomorrow.

Q: Tell us a little more about how difficult it has been to dial in the car for this huge challenge of a racetrack.

KA: Yeah, not easy, also because it’s a track where you have many kinds of corners, you know, high-speed, low-speed, chicanes. So not easy to get the car in the right window. And as well with tyres, I think it was not easy to find the right balance between first sector and, you know, end of lap. So, tricky track. But I think the biggest challenge is going to be tomorrow because, yeah, degradation seems to be quite high.

Q: I was going to ask you more about that. How do you think the tyres are going to hold up?

KA: Yeah, probably it’s going to be grandmother driving in the first 10 laps, but let’s see. You know, we saw in the long run how steep the degradation can be, especially if you push too early. So, let’s see. We’ll try to see in the moment. Maybe tomorrow we go into the race and the degradation is going to be much lower, so we just need to see in the moment.

Q: All right, Kimi, thank you very much for that. Max, if we could come to you now. Just a tenth off pole position yourself. It was a stunning session. Just how clean, how good was your lap?

MV: I think it was alright. I mean, I haven’t been here so much this year in the top three, so for me I think we had a good qualifying. The car, I think we made some nice improvements, but it was also, I think, straight away when we arrived here in, let’s say, a decent window. And then, yeah, I think where we just struggle a little bit is always that final sector, where we just don’t seem to get our deployment like our competitors, and that makes it, of course, very tough to match. But, yeah, overall, I mean, I’m quite happy with how everything went. I mean, every qualifying, from Q1 to Q2 to Q3, just nice progression. There were not really things that, I guess, I left on the table, just more like a few limitations within the car that we know we have, plus the deployment in the final sector where we just didn’t seem to maybe fully get it right. But that’s qualifying. I mean, the race is again very different.

Q: You were quickest in Q2. Just how confident were you feeling of snatching pole position at that point?

MV: Yeah, but I think I was also one of the only ones that used two sets, so it’s not really a fair comparison.

Q: What about the tactics to run so late in Q3? I mean, the track was ramping up. Was it simply to try and catch the conditions at their best?

MV: No, it’s just to have clean air and there was enough time. You know, everyone, I guess, went quite early, so there was a bit of time for us to run later.

Q: And just, can we throw it forward then to tomorrow? How do you see your prospects? Do you think you can challenge the guy in the middle?

MV: It will be tough. I mean, even, let’s say, best-case scenario, you are faster, you can’t pass. There are no corners where you can pass. So, you need to rely on people deg-ing very aggressively, you know. So, yeah, it’s going to be tough. I mean, the long runs were very tough, a lot of deg for everyone, so that will be probably the key point tomorrow. But even with that, I need to still figure out a corner where to pass.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (James Phillips – Motorsport Monday) Question for Lando, please. You lost a session yesterday. Can you walk us through how that impacted today’s result and the approach that you need to take with the team in order to bounce back from that, please? Thank you.

LN: Sure. Hello, man. It’s always hard to know exactly what. I mean, you just lose laps. It’s not like you get a lot of laps in general, especially in lower-fuel qualifying-style runs. So, obviously I lost them. I also lost that little indication of what the degradation will be like tomorrow. Like they both alluded to, there’s a chance of high degradation, so that’s when you want certainly a little bit of a feeling of how it degrades, what corners to really save, all of those little things. You want those feelings from the car, and at the minute I don’t have any of them. So that’s something I kind of have to find out on the go tomorrow and adapt to. And also, just in terms of, you know, you lose a little bit in terms of set-up. Like, you don’t really know what direction to go in. We went in a direction for FP2, didn’t really end up knowing if it was better or worse, or do we need to do more of what we were going to do? So that just left a lot of question marks for today to then try and figure out. And you just lose the ability to test as much stuff as you would want to from a car point of view and also from a driver point of view, especially around a new track. Just little subtleties of where the bumps are and when you put on a new set of tyres, where can you really get on throttle a bit more aggressively? How do you have to take the kerbs in the chicane? So, it’s just timing, timing of things you lose as a driver. And then, yeah, it’s easy to put too much pressure on yourself into FP3 to try and re-catch up and take too many risks in some way and overdrive. It is hard to quantify a number in any sort, but you just lose experience around, especially around a new track. It can hurt a lot, but I seemed to do a pretty good job in the end, so.

Q: (Zsolt Godina – F1Vilag.hu) We’d like to take you to all of you, please. How difficult was it to keep it clean on those final laps, and how difficult will it be tomorrow to keep the concentration level high with tyre, traffic and energy management?

LN: I mean, it wasn’t too bad. I think there’s probably been fewer crashes altogether than maybe I think people would expect. It’s quite a high-grip track, which makes up for it in a lot of ways. And, you know, certain things that make crashes happen in other street circuits, exit kerbs and things, you don’t have too many problems with them here. So, I mean, you’re pushing on the limit, you have some moments for sure. My last corner on my last lap, I thought I was in the wall, so it was just from over-pushing the entry and getting a bit keen on brake point. But tomorrow, I don’t know. It’s going to be a long race. It’s going to be hot, and there’s just going to be a lot of learning for me, and I guess for everyone, to do.

KA: Yeah, it was a bit better than expected, to be fair. Still tricky when you have to put things together, but, yeah, I think for everyone it was better than anticipated. Also, it’s high grip, so that helps for sure. And, yeah, tomorrow is going to be a lot about managing the tyres and not deg-ing off, you know, so much as well. We don’t really know how the Hard tyre is, how resilient it is. So, you know, tomorrow we may have two stops, three stops, we’ll see. But the key is, yeah, especially in that first stint, to try and manage as much as you know without giving up too much time, trying to manage the tyres.

MV: Yeah, I mean, it’s always tough, I think, when you’re on the limit. And, yeah, with your concentration, I think on any street circuit it’s always a bit more difficult, I guess. You know, it’s easy to make a mistake and then the mistake ends up with you hitting a wall or crashing, so you just need to be aware of that. But, yeah, I think what helps is what they said also, the grip is high. That’s nice, at least. And then it’s all about just the degradation and, yeah, just trying to stay clean.

Q: (Ronald Vording – Motorsport.com). Question to Lando and Kimi, please. A qualifying lap around here, what does it compare to the most in terms of sensation? Is it closest to Monaco, Jeddah or anything else? And second part of the question: do you guys agree with Max that there are literally zero overtaking opportunities, like not a single corner you can make an overtake?

LN: I’ll answer the first part and Kimi can answer the second part. Honestly, I think Monaco is a lot harder track than this, mainly because it’s pretty much just all barriers everywhere. Here you kind of cut through parts of the track, let’s say, and you have little bits of run-off. So, I think in terms of a qualifying lap, you have to take more risk and you’re more in that kind of zone of anything can happen in Monaco than you are here. And honestly, I would still say Jeddah feels like a faster track and closer to the limit from a high-speed point of view. So, it’s a little bit in the middle of, I don’t know, Singapore, Baku-ish, I would say, towards Jeddah-ish. But it’s just a little bit of a mix. You know, you have a lot of slow speeds, not that many high-speed corners, honestly. So it’s just in the middle and it’s got a bit of everything. So I do enjoy the track. I certainly think things could be improved for next year and made even better, especially from an overtaking point of view. So, to talk about overtaking, Kimi…

KA: Yeah, I think Monaco is probably still a bit more intense, but also this track takes quite a bit of effort just to try and put the lap together. And overtaking, yes, I think it’s going to be very difficult. In practice I spent two laps behind the Williams trying to painfully get past, but just really difficult, especially because already the deg is quite big and when you’re behind you start sliding more and it just makes your life a bit tougher. So, yeah, the only thing you can do is try to put pressure on the car in front, trying to make them make a mistake or make them deg a bit more, and then you try to play with strategy. But, yeah, especially when you have a very similar pace, it is difficult to make a move.

Q: And Jeddah, Baku, Monaco… 

KA: Singapore… 

Q: Bit of everything.

KA: Yeah, it’s there in the middle, I think, you know. Jeddah is definitely more high speed than this. Monaco feels like Monaco, 

MV: Feels like Madrid. Yeah, I mean, we could talk about this forever, but yeah, it’s a Madrid track.

Q: (Rodrigo França – Magazine, Brazil) Question to all. How challenging were Turn 12 and 13 were during qualifying, was that an easy flat-out or really a place cool to drive a Formula 1 car? 

MV: Well, I wanted to go flat, but then my battery dies, so you add a lift to have better deployment. So that’s my Monumental experience. Yeah, I mean, it’s cool, the banking, but I think they should have done it the other way around, though. Initially more banking and then just flatten it out. But, yeah, I mean, in an F1 car you have so much downforce. I think it’s more challenging in the other categories because it didn’t look so easy flat in other categories. For us, plus because our battery dies towards the end, so you already slow down a bit. But, I mean, I guess for the shots it looks great from the outside.

LN: Max explained it pretty well, to be honest. It’s not the biggest challenge because you have to just save the battery through the first part of the corner. So, yeah, it would be better if we just had no battery and more power, so in a few years maybe it’ll be more fun. But it’s cool. You know, it’s still a cool feeling, it’s a different feeling. I think this track has a lot of character from, you know, elevation and cambered corners, off-cambered corners. So, I think it’s a good thing, adds to it, it’s something different. It allows you… cambered corners normally allow you to follow better. So, I think next year more corners should be a bit more cambered, especially if the overtaking is difficult. And, yes, some corners can be tweaked to make, again, the racing better. But it’s a fun corner. It could just be better.

KA: Nothing to add.

Q: (David Crespo – 20Minutos) A question for all of you. It’s been talked about a lot throughout this weekend that the circuit is difficult, it’s challenging, but has it been enjoyable for you? Have you liked Madrid? 

KA: Yeah, like Lando said, it’s a track that has a lot of character. You know, some corners are very tricky, some of the braking as well, where you brake while turning. So I think the track is good fun. But as Lando said, there are some corners that could be changed just to make the experience even better and also to help racing. But I think overall it’s a fun track. 

LN: They’ve covered it well.

MV: I like the grip. They did a good job with the tarmac, even though in some places it’s a bit too bumpy already for a new track. The corners, like I said before, you can’t overtake. So, in some places, the braking zones, like, they need to learn that it should never be that you have to steer, that you have to combine under braking, because it doesn’t allow any kind of overtaking. So, for sure, in terms of track design, I think it can be better. I think also input from drivers in the future on track design can also help a lot. I know they will always come back to you and say, “Yeah, but the space,” but that’s BS. There’s always a way to find an overtaking opportunity around a track. But overall, the event itself is very cool. I mean, yes, they’ve done a great job. Also how quick, I think, they made the track available, the information that was shared for the simulator. So, from that sense, I think, yeah, it was very good. But in terms of, if you want to have better racing, overtaking, I think there can be a few corners that can be changed.

LN: I think it just has a lot of potential. Just certain things need to be improved. Also, like the pit lane. Pit lane is like six kilometres long! So… 

KA: And yesterday I said, “Remove the building that is in the middle.”

LN: Yeah, we should have two parts of the pit lane. Pit limiter off pit limiter, pit limiter. It’s the longest pit lane of the year and biggest pit loss of the year as well. So that just makes overtaking worse. Not overtaking, but it makes the desire to box and do different strategies worse. You know, if we’re going to build a new track and spend so much money in building a new track, this is probably one of the main factors, I would say, in making a track, is you have a short pit lane so people can pit and you then create overtaking. Even with degradation being high or low, it doesn’t matter. So, the fact it’s the longest pit lane, in a time when we should be making a pit lane shorter or doing things where at least it cuts Turn 1 into Turn 2, you know, like that’s a good thing as well. But it’s still the longest and the slowest pit lane of the year. So little things like that, braking zones. But it’s still a fun track. Like, quali was still exciting and still scares you a little bit, so it’s a good feeling.

Q: (Fleur Rogerson – Motorsport Monday). My question’s for all of you. We’ve obviously touched on how difficult overtaking is going to be tomorrow. How important is the start and that run into Turn 1, and is there any chance of overtaking during the race, or is it just going to be relying on chaos in the field, hopefully for you guys?

KA: Hopefully? I mean, I hope no chaos for us. No, but apart from jokes, yeah, start is very important for sure and run into Turn 1 is going to be important. But then after that, you know, if you have a similar pace, unless they make a mistake or you’re able to have better deg and do something different strategy, then you can create opportunities. But, you know, when the gaps are so close, it’s really hard to create overtaking opportunities. But that’s why, you know, the start is going to be very important tomorrow.

LN: No, I think you can print, “The start is always important at every racetrack we go to and it’s one of the most important things in a race.”

MV: Yeah, I mean, luckily I always have great starts this year, so we’ll be all right.

ENDS