Today's post-qualifying press conference with Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.

Track Interviews - Conducted by Marc Gene

Lando Norris, pole position.
Lando Norris: It was pretty much a perfect lap. You know you're on a good lap when you're getting excited but the whole thing went perfectly in the end. So, close, still, but super, super happy. One of my, I'd say, my best pole positions. I've not had many but out of the ones I've had, my best. We've been close all weekend, but really this was just about a perfect lap and that's what I did today. So it was cool, the fans and my supporters here are amazing, so a big thanks to everyone cheering me on.

As you say, this is only your second pole position, but it looks like this weekend you were really one of the favourites. I mean, what is this that you are so fast this weekend, for your car and for yourself?
LN: It's not. I mean, it's not just this weekend. You know, we've been quick the last two months. Since Miami, we've been very strong. And we probably missed out on a pole by just not doing a perfect lap. And today was the perfect lap. So I would say Max and Red Bull seemed a little bit stronger all weekend than we did. But we made some changes for the final run. I had some little places to improve and I did exactly that. So, yeah, super happy to be on pole.

And final question for tomorrow. Do you think you can convert that pole into a race win? Of course, I guess!
LN: That's our target, but I know it's going to be tough against Max, against Lewis and everyone behind, but we're here to win now, so that's my plan.

Congratulations, enjoy it. Max, it was a very close battle. You've been on pole position more than anyone. You were having some difficulties this weekend, but again today you were very fast. Did you think you had a chance today to be on pole after Q1 and Q2?
Max Verstappen: Yeah, I think in qualifying it was all coming together a bit nicer. The whole weekend we've been trying to find a bit of a connected balance because in all the practice sessions it was very difficult. So I was quite happy in qualifying. I mean, even in Q3 I got a nice little tow from Checo to Turn 1 to really extract everything we could and unfortunately it was just not enough. But that is how it goes sometimes. I think overall we can still be very happy with this performance in qualifying and it's definitely all to play for tomorrow.

The slipstream was just chance or did you work for it? And then how much did the temperature affect things? Because it was much cooler this afternoon than this morning.
MV: Yeah, just by chance. I didn't even know initially where Checo was on the lap and then they told me where he was so I was like, ;I'll try to hang on to him'. And yeah, besides that, with the temperature, I do think it was a bit more fun in qualifying. But even I think throughout qualifying, the wind started to pick up a little bit. Maybe that made it a bit more difficult for us in Q3, but overall a good performance again in qualifying.

You've been having an easy time in the past, now it's a bit more challenging. What do you prefer? The challenge that you have from your competitors or to have easy poles like in the past?
MV: You know, at the end of the day, they're never really easy poles because you're always in a battle with yourself. But, of course, now it's with more teams, and I think that is good for Formula 1 in general, and, of course, when it's always that close for a pole position, I think that's always great.

Lewis Hamilton, you have a lot of supporters everywhere you go. Big crowd. Today, I guess you are happy to be P3. Were you expecting more? How happy are you with your lap and with your position for qualifying?
Lewis Hamilton: I'm really happy. Firstly, thank you everyone. So, so happy to be here and super grateful to be up in the top three. It's been quite a difficult year so a huge amount of work from everyone back at the factory and finally we're starting to see those incremental steps moving closer to the guys ahead. I didn't expect us to be fighting for pole necessarily but every now and then it looked like there were bits there and maybe we'll be close and so to be there I'm just grateful.

So can we say really that you've made, as a team, a big step in the last few grands prix? It looked like in Canada. That is a confirmation, I guess. That's a very demanding track.
LH: Yeah, we've made huge steps forwards. And it's really just down to every single individual back at the factory who's pushing in design, pushing in making the new parts that we get to bring as early as possible to these races. And slowly the car is crafting into a racing machine that we can hopefully fight the guys at the front. So George did a great job as well today. So hopefully tomorrow we can apply pressure on the two cars ahead.

Press Conference

Lando, what a moment for you. Just to begin with, how good does this feel?
LN: It feels great, yeah. I mean, poles always feel good, and it's the second one in my career. I mean, I've had two Sprint race poles, but I don't regard that at all as a pole position. So, yeah, this is the second one of my career. It's been a while since Sochi, all the way back then, so... Yeah, it feels great. I mean, it was an amazing lap. Honestly, it was my best lap by a long way. I pretty much put the whole lap together, so I got a nice slipstream. I think probably my best corner around the lap, every single part of it put together. Max was a bit ahead in Q1, Q2. I knew I had to kind of do something perfect in Q3 to do it. And that's exactly what I did. So I'm pretty happy that I managed to pull off probably my best lap that I've done probably ever.

You say it's your perfect lap. I was going to say, how many times in your career have you driven the perfect lap in qualifying?
LN: I mean, I'm probably going to get back and Jarv, my engineer, is going to tell me that I've messed something up, but I think it's so tricky nowadays, with the car and the tyres, and we're pushing so much, just to put everything together. You might be able to do half of it once and half of it another or mix it up, but to kind of put all of it right at that limit is very tricky and I'm sure every driver would say the same. So very rewarding when you do and when you do it and end up on pole because of it, it's even sweeter.

You were there or thereabouts throughout practice. What were your expectations coming into this session? Did you always believe pole was on the cards?
LN: I think so. I mean, we're always close. I don't think any practice was split by more than a tenth between the top five. So I was expecting the same as that, and I think it was. Probably Max was always two and a half tenths ahead of everyone, both Q1 and Q2 in the runs we did. And we did three laps, you know, we did three runs, four runs in the end altogether. So you do four laps throughout the whole of qualifying. But every time was like missing a little bit to Max and a lot of it was high speed. So I knew for the final lap, I've got to go balls out and do it, you know. And I managed to get that little bit, like that, you know, 200ths, 300ths, 400ths that I was needing to get out of Max I managed to get. So I'm happy the risks paid off and for all of it to come together when I needed it most was great.

Let's throw it forward to the Grand Prix. What are your biggest concerns going into this Grand Prix?
LN: I don't have any concerns. I mean I'm excited. It's a long run down to Turn 1. It's probably one of the places you don't want to start on pole, but it's an opportunity for us to go out and try and win a race you know. We've not done loads of long running. We've done a bit and I think we were close, as it always has been. I think tomorrow is not like this car is way quicker. I think between Mercedes, ourselves, Red Bull, Ferrari, there's eight cars that could have probably been on pole today and that have a chance of probably winning the race tomorrow. So it's about making the least mistakes, similar to today, and just trying to execute another good race that we normally do.

Alright. Very well done today. Good luck tomorrow Lando, thank you. Max, coming to you now. After improving on your second run of Q3, did you think you had it? Did you think you'd done enough for pole?
MV: The lap itself was good. I mean, I even also got a tow to Turn 1. I think in general, when you look at it, the whole of qualifying was just miles better than practice for me. I always felt like the car was not really connected in all the free practice sessions. So when I went into qualifying, it just clicked much better. And I think in the very high speed, we were particularly strong around the laps, with Turns 3, 9, and the last corner, which were quite comfortably flat. But I guess in a way probably that's why we were not improving that much in the final few runs because those corners are flat, so there's nothing to gain, and then there are not that many corners left around the track. So I did make my gains but I probably was already flat where maybe Lando wasn't flat before and then you just lose out a little bit with that. So maybe a bit too draggy for qualifying, looking back at it, But that's something that is always very easy to say afterwards because the whole of the weekend we were just sliding around too much and now probably it was finally hooked up and you probably would have turned down the wing a little bit, but that's how it goes.

You say it all clicked for qualifying. What are the main reasons for that? Do you think the cloud cover helped you a little bit as well?
MV: No, we made some set-up changes again to the car and it all just felt a bit more normal.

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