Pole-setter Lando Norris: “I quickly realised what I had to do”

For the fourth time this season, Lando Norris celebrated securing pole position at the Brazilian Grand Prix. The 2025 World Champion had secured it under the most difficult conditions, as just two minutes after the start of qualifying, the session was interrupted for more than an hour due to the heavy rain pouring down on the Interlagos circuit. When proceedings finally resumed, the field initially took to the track on wet tyres.

At the end of Q2, the GP stars were able to switch to intermediate tyres, and Norris made it through to the third qualifying segment with the ninth-fastest lap. All contenders for the top 10 grid positions were warned that the rain was set to intensify again and that they would likely only have time for one fast attempt. The McLaren driver remained undeterred and secured pole position with a time of 1:27.470 minutes, ahead of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.

After the qualifying session, which ended early due to the increasing rain, Norris said: “It’s been a long day, and it was, of course, a brilliant qualifying session. To have secured pole here for the second time in a row is, of course, brilliant. The conditions are completely different to last year, but I’m over the moon.”

“It wasn’t easy, especially as we knew the rain was going to get much heavier. It was all about getting two laps in at the start and not making any mistakes, and that’s exactly what we managed to do. So it was a very good day,” the 26-year-old continued.

“That was my first time in this car on a wet track and I think I got the hang of what I needed to do quite quickly. It was tricky with the different tyres – first the wet tyres, then the intermediates – and in the end it was very windy too. So I’ve learnt a lot, which I’ll probably be able to put to good use in tomorrow’s race. The Mercedes lads are also very fast, which is why I’m very happy. Today it was all about securing pole position, and it didn’t matter how you went about it. That’s why I’m very satisfied,” added Norris, visibly relieved.

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