Lando Norris’ bid to advance his championship ambitions took a major hit during qualifying for the 2025 Saudi Arabian GP on Saturday. The McLaren driver was in contention for pole position but binned his MCL39 into the barriers during his first flying lap in Q3.
The treacherous kerbs of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit claimed the #4 driver’s hopes for the evening after a snap of oversteer sent the Briton’s car flying into the barriers at turn 5—forcing Race Control to red flag the session.
Up until this point, Norris had been able to keep the lead in the drivers’ standings, by the slimmest of margins over his teammate, Oscar Piastri and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. But former F1 driver, Jolyon Palmer believes that this qualifying crash in Jeddah could change things in the title race to the detriment of the five-time Grand Prix winner.
“It’s huge. I feel it’s huge for the momentum of this championship. Oscar has not done his greatest lap, he went quicker in Q2, this was a door ajar on a weekend where Lando has been the faster McLaren,” he explained on the F1 TV broadcast. Precisely so, as taking advantage of Norris’ mishap, Verstappen and Piastri could assert their supremacy in the title battle as they have locked out the front row.
Piastri, in particular, had closed the points gap in the standings to Norris to just three points after a stellar weekend at the Bahrain GP. This weekend in Saudi Arabia was the perfect chance for Norris to respond and stretch his legs. However, he has failed to capitalize on that chance.
This is the moment that cost Lando Norris a chance at pole position tonight #F1 #SaudiArabianGP pic.twitter.com/QvzYSUYrha
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 19, 2025
Norris‘ misery coincided with Piastri putting in a banker lap good enough to steal provisional pole. With the other drivers having essentially lost one run owing to the timing of Norris’ red flag, it seemed as though it was advantage Piastri to seal his third pole position in F1.
At one point of time, Sky Sports F1 commentator, David Croft even questioned the legitimacy of Piastri’s lap, hinting at a possibility that the Australian racing ace might not have crossed the finish line before the red flag had came out. This, however, wasn’t to be the case.
Either way, Piastri’s first flying lap wasn’t enough with Verstappen taking provisional pole away from him as the session restarted. In fact, Verstappen was the only driver who had another set of fresh tires left and could go on a second attempt.
In the end, the Dutchman snatched pole position away from Piastri by a whisker—0.010 seconds. It all seems like a Verstappen versus Piastri battle for the race win in Jeddah and could turn out to be the eventual tussle in the championship as well.
That said, Norris will still start from the fifth-row of the grid in P10 and can mount a recovery drive good enough to keep his lead in the standings intact. At least that’s what the Briton would hope to do.
