Lando Norris achieved pole position in Las Vegas and flies to the title
The Englishman dominated the wet track conditions in the urban area of Nevada like no one else and will start the 22nd round of the year in the lead. Max Verstappen will complete the front row.
What better place than Las Vegas to play a full game? In the city of casinos and sinthe Formula 1 classification became a game of roulette. The rain that began to fall intensely minutes before qualifying began changed the plans. If the panorama was already complex with the gripless and icy ground in urban Nevada, when the downpour arrived everything became about trying to take advantage of the right moment. And who did it? The little boy of the moment: Lando Norris, who took pole position and went straight to his first title.
The Englishman revived in the middle of the weekend after a very difficult first day. In the first test he did not achieve a good brake balance on his McLaren and, added to the lack of grip, it was difficult for him to stay within the limits of the track. The first place in the second practice session did not reflect anything, because the last 20 minutes were lost due to the sewer at turn 17. The third test began on a wet track. And in the qualy, deluge. And yes, there was no other option, it was to play a full game. And Lando did not fail.
And that is precisely where Norris took advantage. After making countless mistakes for a good part of the year (some big and some small), the Englishman entered a moment of absolute firmness and brilliance. The McLaren driver is in the best moment of his sporting career at the right moment: lto the definition of the World Cup. He comes from doing a lot in Mexico and São Paulo (in Interlagos he added the victory in the sprint) and in Las Vegas he signed his third consecutive pole position.
Max Verstappen had the best time. But Norris was lowering everything. In the last sector he was about to lose his car, the wall looked at him threateningly, but he used his wrist, avoided the spin and closed the turn in 1m47s934 to beat the four-time champion by 323 thousandths. And, of course, he is the main candidate to win this Saturday night’s race.
Norris arrived in Sin City 24 points ahead of his teammate Oscar Piastri. The Australian has accumulated six races with meager results and cannot get out of the bad streak. In the end, the man from Melbourne was looking for a starting position that could fuel his title dream, but a yellow flag in the second sector forced him to slow down and he will start fifth. Las Vegas is a track with long straights, a lot of DRS and chances of overtaking. But the moments that Norris and Piastri live are diametrically opposed and all roads seem to lead to the conquest of the British.
And Max? With Piastri involved in his own ghosts, Norris’s greatest rival seems to be Verstappen. Although the numbers do not put him as a serious threat: he is 49 points away, with 83 at stake. Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s sports advisor, has already said that they need Norris to leave so that the chances are more real. In any case, one thing is clear: the Dutchman will risk everything in every outing on the court. Norris has an advantage because he can be second in Las Vegas, behind Max and in any case he will leave with an appreciable difference.
The difficult classification of the Nevada street race left some very high points. Carlos Sainz got third with the Williams (Alex Albon was left out in Q1 and with the car broken) and the Racing Bulls duo (Liam Lawson was sixth and Isack Hadjar, eighth). Charles Leclerc was indebted for ninth place (he could not close a good lap in Q3) and Pierre Gasly maximized his Alpine to be tenth.
