‘I’m lucky and I’ll take it’ – Norris hails ‘beautiful’ pole lap as he predicts ‘tough race’ in Austin

Lando Norris was thrilled to claim pole position for the United States Grand Prix with a “beautiful lap”, though the McLaren driver acknowledged that he had been “lucky” after the likes of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were unable to improve due to double waved yellow flags.

While Verstappen had set the pace in Q1 and Q2, Norris pumped in an impressive lap during the opening runs of Q3 to put himself on provisional pole. The Briton was unable to better this on his second attempt – just before George Russell then crashed out at Turn 19 in the final moments of the session, resulting in those still on a lap having to slow down which included Verstappen.

READ MORE: Norris clinches pole position ahead of Verstappen in Austin as Russell dramatically crashes out in final moments

Reflecting on his pole-clinching lap of 1m 32.330s after jumping out of the car, Norris commented: “It was a beautiful lap. I was not going to go much quicker than what I did. You know when you just do a lap and you think it’s going to be tough to beat that, but I put everything out on the line. It’s all we needed to do.

“We’ve been on the back foot pretty much the whole weekend. We’ve not had the pace of the Ferraris or the Red Bulls so I had to do something, and today I did that. A cool lap and a nice way to start the race tomorrow.”

With qualifying coming just hours after an entertaining Sprint at the Circuit of The Americas, Norris was asked whether switching mindset between each event was a challenge.

“Around here it is because it’s a lot faster,” the 24-year-old explained. “This is one of the tracks where inside you’re like ‘damn this is fast’, and it’s exciting and it just gives you a good feeling.

AS IT HAPPENED: Follow all the action from qualifying for the United States Grand Prix

“It’s bumpy and it’s fast, especially Sector 1, so it puts a smile on your face and definitely ending quickest puts a bigger smile on your face too. A tough day, a tough weekend for us but we changed quite a bit.

“I think we reviewed everything we could and we made the improvements we needed to make. Maybe we weren’t the quickest car out there today. Carlos said he was going to go quicker, Max was going to go quicker so I’m lucky and I’ll take it.”

Norris ended the Sprint in third place, having been overtaken by Sainz on the final lap as the McLaren struggled with tyre degradation.

Quizzed on whether he has confidence that this issue has been addressed ahead of Sunday’s race, Norris said: “Uh sure! It’s tough, I’ll do my homework. We already made some changes to hopefully improve that direction but time will tell.

READ MORE: Norris taking positives from Austin Sprint despite ‘disappointing end’ as he suggests McLaren don’t have pace of rivals

“We’ll work hard, we’ve done a good job so far. Box number one ticked, but tomorrow’s going to be a tough race.”