Norris’ ‘perfect lap’ lands pole position; Ricciardo ‘quite surprised’ by grim result: Qualifying Wrap

‘I still belong’: Ricciardo opens up F1 future as ‘taxing’ contract reality laid bare

“I think the whole of qualifying was better than practice for me,” said Verstappen, who won his maiden Grand Prix in Barcelona in 2016 and is on a hat-trick after wins in Catalonia in 2022 and 2023.

“It all clicked much better. The other teams are catching up, we need to bring more performance to the car.”

Ferrari-bound Hamilton was happy to be towards the front of the grid as he outqualified his teammate Russell for only the second time this year.

“It’s good to be back up here, great to see we are progressing,” Hamilton said.

“We are slowly climbing closer to the guys in front, it’s really on a knife edge.

“I’m really happy to be in P3 with that long straight to turn one.”

Joining Leclerc on the third row will be his Ferrari teammate and home favourite Carlos Sainz.

Next came the Alpine of Pierre Gasly, the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez, who has a three-place grid penalty from Canada, Esteban Ocon in the other Alpine and Oscar Piastri in the second McLaren.

After only a tenth of a second had covered the top four in final practice earlier the stage was set for an intriguing pole battle.

Complicating matters was a sizeable drop in temperature, with morning sunshine giving way to heavy cloud cover with the wind picking up.

The action on track though was anything but cool, as drivers scrambled to eke out every last ounce of performance for a Grand Prix won from pole in 24 of 33 races run at the circuit.

After clipping the McLaren of Norris at the end of final practice Leclerc tuned up for qualifying with a trip to the FIA’s headmaster’s study as the race stewards investigated the incident.

Leclerc was arguably fortunate to escape with only a reprimand rather than a grid penalty, announced just before qualifying got under way.

The man from Monaco made an early statement of intent, going quickest from Verstappen.

But Hamilton grabbed Q1 honours right at the end, jumping from 14th to first as the RB team’s Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo were among the five drivers failing to progress to the second session.

The failure to make it out of Q1 left Ricciardo “quite surprised” given the team had made a number of upgrades to the car.

“Of course, there are some corners where you feel you should be flat there or whatever, so you know you may be missing a bit of load, but in general, I felt much better than yesterday,”

Ricciardo said.

“To still be back where we are … there’s still a bit more to find, I guess.”

Verstappen led Mercedes duo Hamilton and Russell after Q2 as local veteran and former two-time winner on his home tarmac Fernando Alonso narrowly failed to make it into Q3 in his Aston Martin.

Verstappen came alive when it counted most – after a quietish time in the three practice sessions he led Q3 after the first flurry of laps.

All the drivers pitted to prepare for one last attempt at depriving the Red Bull ace from Sunday’s pole, with Norris nailing it to end a trying day on a high.

This is the 10th round of the 24-race season and the first of a triple header with Austria and Silverstone coming up over the next two weekends.

SPANISH GRAND PRIX STARTING GRID

1) Lando Norris (McLaren)