Norris Steals Pole by Just 0.011 Seconds as F1 Makes History in Madrid Today

It came down to eleven thousandths of a second — and on a track nobody had ever raced before, that margin might as well have been a mile.

Lando Norris claimed pole position for today's inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid's brand-new MADRING circuit, edging out championship leader Kimi Antonelli by just 0.011 seconds with a fastest qualifying lap of 1:31.824. It marks the third time in the last four rounds Norris has taken pole, and makes him the first-ever pole-sitter at Formula 1's newest venue.

Max Verstappen split the two title contenders for third, 0.140 seconds off Norris's pace, while Lewis Hamilton recovered from an FP3 accident to qualify fourth — narrowly ahead of Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in fifth. Mercedes' Antonelli, who leads the championship by 66 points after a stunning recovery win from 19th on the grid at last time out in Italy, will start alongside his rivals knowing a strong result today could extend that cushion further. George Russell, by contrast, endured a difficult qualifying session, lining up sixth.

Further down the order, Madrid-born Carlos Sainz suffered a heartbreaking home-race elimination, missing out on advancing by just five-thousandths of a second to his own Williams teammate Alex Albon — with fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso also failing to progress, leaving both local favorites starting from the ninth row.

The circuit itself is the real story of the weekend. Built around Madrid's IFEMA Exhibition Centre, MADRING is a hybrid layout blending street-circuit sections with purpose-built racing surface, similar in concept to Miami's street track. Its 22 corners include dramatic elevation changes and what's being billed as the longest banked turn on the current F1 calendar, with cars expected to reach speeds up to 340 km/h across the 5.4-kilometer lap. It's Madrid's first Formula 1 race in roughly 40 years, following the Jarama circuit's last outing in the 1980s.

Support races have already delivered plenty of early drama on the new layout. In Saturday's Formula 2 feature race, Dino Beganovic won a chaotic contest, beating Alex Dunne by seven seconds after two separate safety car periods reshaped the run to the finish — the first triggered by a crash from Kush Maini, the second by contact between championship contender Rafael Camara and Oliver Goethe, which earned Camara a 10-second penalty.

Today's Grand Prix runs 57 laps across 308 kilometers, with lights out scheduled for 2 p.m. local time — Formula 1's final European round of the 2026 season, and, for every driver on the grid, the first time any of them have raced this circuit competitively at all.

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