Lando Norris called his scintillating Spanish Grand Prix pole lap one of the best he's ever done, even if he was convinced in the moment he was going to finish with the car in the wall.
Norris turned in a brilliant final late effort at Madrid's tight and twisty new Formula 1 circuit to beat championship leader Kimi Antonelli by just 0.011 seconds.
He had been down in sixth after his first Q3 timed lap but found an extra 0.7 seconds on his second and final attempt, snatching pole, while teammate Oscar Piastri was only able to qualify seventh.
The reigning world champion even conceded he made a mistake on the final corner -- something McLaren later estimated cost him another 0.3 seconds -- but felt it was otherwise close to perfect.
"I'm a little bit surprised to be here now but my god it was probably one of the best laps I've done ever in my career," Norris said afterwards.
"One of those laps where everything just came together. I had a good idea of what I wanted to do, but it was whether my brain let me do it on the last lap, and pretty much everything worked perfectly.
"One of those laps where you look at the lap time at the end, and you're like, 'oh s---, that was pretty good!' Apart from the last corner ... I thought I was in the wall, and I thought the boys were going to have to repair the car tonight."
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McLaren team boss Andrea Stella was beaming after Norris' lap.
Pole had looked like being a fight between Mercedes and Ferrari until the final moments of Q3.
Stella said Norris' late lap proved the potential McLaren has felt has been locked away inside the car all week.
"I think that's a bit of masterpiece," Stella told Sky Sports after the session. "We had seen across the whole weekend that had we put all together, we were not far from the best cars. So we have worked almost like our way, step by step, to try and put all the performance together.
"I think Lando did it only in the final run of Q3. And if you want the news is that in the final corner he made a mistake of three tenths. So he was on a just incredible lap. I think definitely one of the best of his life until the last corner. He just realised what's available in the car."
Ferrari drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will start on the second row behind Norris and Antonelli, while George Russell will start sixth ahead of Piastri.