Lando Norris reacts to Saudi GP crash as F1 star's first instinct sums him up (2025)

Max Verstappen took pole for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix from Oscar Piastri after Lando Norris crashed out of the session in the other McLaren towards the start of Q3

Lando Norris said he will apologise to his McLaren engineers as he took full responsibility for his qualifying crash. The incident means he will start Sunday's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix from 10th place because he failed to set a lap time in the final part of Saturday night's session.

Championship leader Norris was one of the obvious contenders for pole position in Jeddah. But that went out of the window when he caught the kerb at turn five and lost control of his McLaren, which careered into the barrier at high speed.

The session was red-flagged and the medical car called out to the Brit's aid. Once he had been checked over by medics back in the paddock, Norris headed to the media pen where he wore a rueful smile throughout his Sky Sports interview in which he reacted to his mistake.

"What am I thinking? I've not put my mind to tomorrow, I'm just disappointed," he began. "Right now I'll see my engineers and I'll look ahead to what I can do tomorrow. The car is good, we know the car is quick.

"I'll go and see my engineers and apologise. I'm going to need a bit of luck - it's almost impossible to overtake around here so I'm not expecting anything magical. But we have a good car and if we can work our way up to the top five or six, I'd say I'll be happy. To get close to [the top three] is probably not very realistic."

To make matter worse for McLaren, team-mate Oscar Piastri was not able to take pole position either. He was beaten by Max Verstappen who was again a surprise victor in qualifying for the second time in three race weekends despite the obvious pace deficit of the Red Bull car.

But the Dutchman produced a mighty lap which smashed the Jeddah Corniche Circuit record and will make Piastri's bid for back-to-back victories that much harder on Sunday. "I'm very happy - I definitely didn't expect to be on pole here," Verstappen beamed.

"The car came alive on the night - we made some final changes and it was a lot more enjoyable to drive. The grip was coming to me and, around here, a qualifying lap is extremely difficult. With all the walls, you really need to try to nail it. It's really satisfying to be first in qualifying."

Piastri was not too disappointed to have missed out on pole as he admitted: "To be honest, I was pretty happy with it - there wasn't too much more left in that lap, so I'm happy with what I did.

"I was playing catch-up a little bit through the first part and that last lap felt more or less like the best I could have done. Max has done a good job, it's another high-speed circuit for them where they seem to be having a little bit more success. He's done a good job again, but it's still all to fight for."

Piastri trailed Norris by just three points in the championship heading into the Jeddah race. As a result of their respective qualifying results, the Aussie is the hot favourite to be the new championship leader by the end of Sunday night.