Norris Secures Third Pole in Four Races With ‘Masterpiece’ Lap in Madrid
A remarkable final lap from Lando Norris in Q3 at the Madrid circuit delivered a third pole position in four races for the McLaren driver, prompting team principal Andrea Stella to label the performance a “bit of a masterpiece”.
The achievement stands out not only in the context of the 2026 season but across Norris’ entire career. Perhaps the most striking detail was a slide at the 22nd and final corner—caused as his tyres began to degrade—that cost him over 0.3 seconds. Despite the mistake, his advantage was already so substantial that he still claimed his 19th career pole. The performance electrified the McLaren pit wall and fans alike, particularly because it appeared to materialize unexpectedly.
Stella Hails ‘Most Impressive Lap’ in 450 Grands Prix
“I would say that definitely this was one of the most impressive laps that I witnessed, as somebody that watches telemetry in 450 Grands Prix,” Stella said after the session.
“Because we were not honestly performing to the level of scoring of pole position. I think at no stage during the weekend we demonstrated that the car was performing at the level of being the best car.
We were lacking quite significantly in the first sector – low-speed and kerbing – and for the drivers it was a very difficult car to nail a lap. We saw that there were spells of potential, but it’s always very difficult to put it together.”
As Stella noted, the pole lap would have been even more dominant without the time loss at the finale.
“I think the most impressive thing is the fact that it’s a pole position despite having lost three and a half tenths in the last corner,” the Italian explained. “Which means that it would have been a pretty convincing pole position without this issue.
At the same time, this issue is a consequence of pushing to the level that Lando managed to push. But today, everyone will push the limits.
The thing that makes the lap unique, when you look especially at the telemetry, is the precision, the braking, the speed you carry an entry, the striking of the kerb, the going on power – everything is executed with a pretty unique level of precision.
So for me, that’s if anything the main attribute that would associate to this lap, just the incredible precision in the metre-by-metre execution.”
McLaren’s Weekend-Long Focus on Sector 1 Pays Off
Throughout the weekend, the McLaren engineering team concentrated on the critical opening sector, which features tight complexes at Turns 1 and 2 and again at Turns 5, 5A, and 6. Progress was hampered by a gearbox issue that cost Norris crucial track time in FP2, but incremental setup tweaks through FP3 and qualifying gradually delivered the improvements the team targeted.
“Shout out to Lando, but let me say also to the team,” said Stella. “Because we had the clear objective from the first runs in practice to add some low-speed performance and kerbing performance.
And we kept doing that session after session, but obviously P2 was a bit of loss of ground, because Lando lost pretty much the entire session. So I think this makes his work in Qualifying even more remarkable. And also on Oscar, we were experiencing a little problem on the car, so we didn’t have great references. We kept learning, we kept putting this together.”
Overcoming the MCL40’s Inherent Low-Speed Weakness
Stella emphasized that the core challenge was overcoming the inherent characteristics of the MCL40.
“The car much more naturally performs well in high-speed, fast-flowing sections,” he said. “But struggles to be consistent when you brake and you carry the brakes into low-speed, and then you have to hit a kerb – it’s very unpredictable.
And here there’s many of these kinds of corners. So to start with, in FP1, we saw the difficulties. What I appreciated in the work of the team is that we gave ourselves a clear objective, and we started to nail several areas of the setup that ultimately compounded and allowed the performance of the car to go to another level.
So corner 5, corner 6, I think it’s one of the most difficult corners of the entire championship. The fact that a McLaren could have the fastest Sector 1, it was not only in 5 and 6, we can see in the GPS overlays that we are also the fastest in corner 1 and 2.
But once again, the amount of kerb that you take in corner 1 and landing without upsetting the car, this is why I say the lap was almost unrepeatable, because all this was nailed. So the gain in Sector 1 comes 50% in 5/6, but the other 50% in corner 1 and 2.”
Setup Changes Transform Car for Key Corners
The setup revisions also paid dividends across other critical sections, as Stella further detailed:
“Like I said before, the car was completely changed from the start of FP1 to perform well in these two corners, and corner 7 and corner 20. These are the places where we focussed, because we knew that in the other corners the performance was coming quite naturally for the characteristics of the car.
And in these places, we forced the car to work, but still the performance needed to be extracted. And like I said, this required a level of precision that thankfully we were able to deploy in the final run of Q3. But you know, that lap gives you a sense that it would be difficult to be repeated.”
He added: “Still, I think the exploitation of car potential for the pole position lap is pretty unique. I would say that if we put another set of tyres, I mean, we would gain three-tenths in the last corner, but I’m not sure we would be able to repeat what Lando was able to do in the first 21 corners.”
Tyre Degradation Costs Three Tenths at Final Corner
The only blemish for Norris and the team was the slide at the very end of the lap as the tyres passed their optimal window.
“I think in the last corner he just paid the price of the fact that the lap was coming like one second faster than any other lap,” Stella explained. “Therefore, there was quite a lot more that was extracted from the tyres. But the tyres were tired, and somehow Lando did not take this into account, and he entered the corner with the same impetus that he had in some other corners.
I think it’s just a little bit of a toll that was presented by the tyres – he oversteered in entry, and this means that he loses completely the racing line. And like I say, he lost more than three-tenths.”
