1 – Lando NORRIS (McLaren)
2 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull Racing)
3 – Carlos SAINZ (Williams)

PARC FERMÉ INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by James Hinchcliffe)

Q: Lando, congratulations on the pole position. Great final lap — first two sectors — big moment coming out of 14 on the last lap there. Were you worried you'd given away too much time, or did you think you still had it?
Lando NORRIS: Boy, it was stressful. Stressful as hell. I mean, I didn't know no one else was going to get a lap after me, so I knew I felt like the first few sectors were good. It's so slippery out there. As soon as you hit the kerb a little bit wrong like I did, you snap one way, you lose the car the other way, close to hitting the wall. But good enough. Good enough for P1 today. So, yeah, not the nicest of conditions, but I'm happy it stopped raining and we could get a good qualifying on.

Q: Lando, it's been a tough weekend because it seems like no two sessions have been the same conditions-wise. Worst one being saved for qualifying. So how hard is it for you to get a grip on the car, on the track, when no two sessions seem to be the same?
LN: I mean, you need a good car to do it, first of all. So, the team did a good job. To be honest, I was having a little nap before quali, and I was expecting it to be dry. And I woke up and I saw it was raining, and I thought, ‘oh crap, this is not going to go well’. But, yeah, it's just — no one's driven around here in the rain before. It's difficult to know what to expect. And after Q1, it was pretty — like every corner, you felt like you could crash and it could easily be over. So, one step at a time. Q1, Q2, Q3 — all tough. So, more rewarding a day like this because it was a tricky one?

Q: Alright, we'll come back to you in a sec. Max, we'll go to you. P2 for tomorrow. Difficult conditions out there. But, Max, you seem to love driving in these mixed conditions, these difficult conditions. Was it hard out there, or were you having too much fun to worry about how tough it was?
Max VERSTAPPEN: It was really, really slippery out there. It's already slippery in the dry but in the wet — yeah, it's not fun, I can tell you that. I mean, I like to drive in the wet. This felt more like driving on ice, so it took a long time to get the tyres to work a little bit. I do feel that maybe we were a little bit more competitive on the extreme tyre, but the track is improving, so you have to move on to the inter. And I struggled a lot just to have any kind of grip. And for the final lap, you risk a little bit more, but it was still, of course, by far not enough to fight for first. But still, to be on the front row, I think is good for us. The lap felt alright. It's just super difficult out there to get all the braking zones right and be on the limit of the tyres as well. But we did it. So, excited for tomorrow. I hope the inside is okay in terms of grip. But, yeah, we'll see.
Q: Now go back to Q1, when it was as wet as it was for the whole session. We see gapping a lot in Formula 1 qualifying to try to get some clean air, but it looked like gapping was necessary for visibility. How tough was the visibility at the start of this qualifying?
MV: Yeah, the visibility was also very tough. With these cars as well, with the ground effect, there's a lot of wake that gets kicked up from the floor. So when it rains, there's a lot of water and spray, and that's why you always want at least, like, eight seconds. And I know it's a lot but otherwise, you don't really see what's happening in front of you.

Q: Alright. Well, you got it done. P2 tomorrow. Good luck for that. Congratulations. Carlos Sainz. How about that? P3 — big cheer from the crowd here. Look, we knew that this was a track Williams could potentially be quick at. Were you expecting to have this kind of pace in the wet, though?
Carlos SAINZ: I mean, I'm always optimistic. You know, a dream is for free and I always try and think about myself doing well. This track maybe suited our car in the dry, and in the wet in FP3, we didn't look very promising, but we did a few changes to the car that I think helped in the wet, and that allowed me to — from the first lap of Q1, every time I was finishing the lap, I was P1, P1, P1. On Ex-Wet, I was really, really quick. On Inters, I knew the others maybe would catch up a bit. But, yeah, happy with P3.

Q: So, racing in Las Vegas, it’s such a cool scene, such a cool vibe. You got a lot of fans here up in the stands. Just what’s it like coming back here every year? I know you like racing here. What do you want to say to the fans?
CS: Yeah, a bit like in Austin — massive cheer from the US fans for me every time. I don't know how to thank them, because every time I come to the US, I feel massive support from everyone. So, yeah, thanks a lot, truly. I think the US fans love a bit of an underdog, no? An underdog fight, and I think they see myself with Williams as an underdog but also as a coming project. We're becoming stronger every race, every lap that we do together, and it's great to see people behind us supporting us. And, yeah, would have loved to give them pole today, because that would have been a massive cheer then. But we were just not quite there.

Q: Well, you found the podium once already this year. Let's see if we do it again tomorrow. Best of luck.
CS: Thank you.

Q: Lando, let's go back to you real quick. We talked about how no two sessions have been the same. The race is probably going to be different again. Hopefully it’s dry. Is there anything that you've learned this weekend that you can apply to tomorrow, or is it sort of just shooting from the hip?
LN: Shoot from the hip. Yeah. I've never said that before in my life, but — I mean, the pace has been good all weekend. I think it was going to be good in the dry. I honestly didn't expect to be as good as I was then in the wet. So very happy with that. But there are a lot of unknowns tomorrow. No one's really done much high-fuel running. No one's really done more than, like, 10-lap stints. So I'm sure it's going to be an interesting race — especially, you know, with Max up there, with Carlos as well. Nice to see him up in the top three. So hopefully we can have a good race tomorrow, and everyone can enjoy it.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Many congratulations, Lando. What a session. What a final lap. Can you start by describing how tough it was out there in those conditions?
LN: Pretty nasty. Probably some of the worst—not like the worst conditions, you know, it's been wetter. It's just, it feels like you may as well have been out on slicks, to be honest. It was so slippery, difficult. The amount of wheelspin you have in places, how easy it was to lock tyres, the white lines, the yellow lines—just everything was pretty tough. So, yeah, even more satisfied with the end result because of how tricky it was out there today. But some good laps just to keep it controlled, keep it in a good manner through Q1, through Q2, and obviously risk a little bit more into Q3, and it paid off. So, very happy.

Q: In which part of the track did you have to be most cautious?
LN: In 1, 2, 3… I mean, the braking zones are all quite tricky. Obviously, it's a long lap, and then you get to quite a very difficult last corner—Turn 14—big stop, easy to lock the front tyre. It's easy to just want to brake five metres later, ten metres later. And then you've got the kerbs. A lot of people crashed there and made mistakes, spun. I was close to doing it on my final lap. There were just even bits around the track that were quite weird—some bits felt actually OK, some bits felt just shockingly slippery and difficult to manage, to control the car, the wheelspin—everything. So just, yeah, random bits. But the big braking zone, especially the final corner on a quali lap, is the most daunting, I would say.

Q: With the track conditions improving all the time in Q3, just how difficult was it to get the timing of your runs right?
LN: It was tricky, especially because there's always a risk of yellow flags and also red flags here. I'm surprised there wasn't more, in a way, because of the difficulty today. But we weren’t out near the front, so I was pretty happy to wait a little bit longer down the end of the pit lane and just have some cleaner air, stay out of the way of everyone else behind, try and avoid as much as possible the yellow flags and take that risk element out of it and just let me put some laps in, build the confidence in the car. Of course, I was, I think, the only one who got one more lap at the end of the run, and that worked out perfectly. I think we were still pretty good before, and then to get the timing of—I think we did like push-push, push-cool-push or something at the end. So, yeah, just making sure the battery was ready, making sure the tyres were in good condition. And obviously, having that chance to go one more lap than everyone else worked out perfectly. Never easy on a day like today, but everything worked well.

Q: Let's throw it forward now to the Grand Prix tomorrow. The forecast is for a dry race. In terms of performance, where does the car feel better this year than it did last year in Las Vegas?
LN: Just everywhere in Las Vegas. Every corner, every straight, every bump. I proved myself wrong in terms of, you know, the expectation was pretty low coming into this weekend, even on Wednesday in the press conference. I wasn't expecting too much. But they were definitely not high. So for us to show some good performance yesterday, this morning as well in practice before some of the issues we had—I already felt pretty good and quite confident that if it was going to be a dry quali, we would be challenging. It would be tight, but we could be challenging for pole. So when I woke up from my nap before quali, I wasn’t too happy seeing it was raining, because it's always just a bit more chaos. And, yeah, never the most confident over the course of this year—especially the beginning—with these conditions, with the car. It can be quite tricky at times. But from the first lap I actually felt pretty good in the car, and that turned into a good result.

Q: We've just had a wet quali. Practice has been disrupted a lot. Just how much of an unknown is the race tomorrow?
LN: Yeah, quite a bit. I don't think I've done more than four laps in a row. So I've got no idea on stints and things like that. Many questions, probably for everyone. I'm sure not many people have run the Hard tyre, that kind of thing. I don't really know. The pace has been strong—has been better than it was last year, that's for sure. So I expect to be fighting up there, but with Max, with Carlos—you know, they could both be pushing as good opportunities for them. So yeah, it's going to be a long race. Many things can happen. Obviously, if it's dry, a bit more simple for everyone, I think. But I'm in the best position I can be, so happy for now.

Q: Max. Let's come to you. Very well done to you as well. Can we start just by talking about the conditions from your point of view? How tricky was it for you in the Red Bull?
MV: Yeah, it was super slippery. You know, it felt like ice. To be honest, not a lot of fun to do. I mean, I love driving in the wet, but this for me is a little bit too much, I would say. You just have to be super careful. And honestly, I was surprised there were not too many incidents. So everyone was behaving, I think, quite well—or scared. Whatever. I think we were a little bit more competitive on the Extreme than the Inter. Just super hard to do a clean lap. You have people backing out, yellow flags, locking up yourself, 360—all of that. So yeah. We just went through qualifying without too many dramas, I would say. And to be on the front row is good. A bit unlucky of course with not having another lap, but I think if you look at the whole of Q3, we never really were in contention for pole anyway, so it's fine like this.

Q: How much were the conditions improving? Because I was going to say, if you'd had another lap, do you think Lando was within reach?
MV: Well, yeah. But it doesn’t unfortunately work like that. Of course the track does dry up and normally, lap after lap, you should be able to go faster, but there was no time. I think if you look at the whole of Q3, we were never up there. We were never first, we were never quick enough, and to be second is fine.

Q: What about the race tomorrow? Are you confident in the pace of the car here in the dry?
MV: It's a bit difficult to say. We didn’t really do any proper long running. In FP1 I did a little bit, which was not entirely to my liking. So I hope with the changes we've made since then that it will be a little bit better. But I’m not expecting it to be amazing. I hope we have a chance to do well.

Q: Thank you, Max. Carlos, if we can come to you now. Brilliant job by you. Many congratulations. Just how good was that final lap?
CS: Yeah, it was a very good lap. I thought it was a pole-worthy lap. When I closed the lap, I saw myself in P1, and then I realised I was the first car across the flag. And yeah, maybe that was not going to last very long with these two guys coming behind, but it felt like a really good quali. If anything, I think we were more competitive on the Extreme Wet in Q1 and Q2. I wish it would have stayed Ex-Wet because that was the tyre that gave me the best feeling and the best confidence. Every time we were hitting the board, we were P1. But yeah, on Inters I was expecting to go slower given our FP3 performance wasn't great, and in the end it turned out to be just fine. But yeah, in the end, it couldn’t be.

Q: Have you had a good feeling from the car from lap one this weekend?
CS: Yeah, I've had a good feeling. It's just been very disrupted and we’ve never been able to show ourselves or show our pace in the top of the timings. Obviously in the dry, I don't think we would have been more than P6, P5, P7, P8 in that range. The wet allowed us today to shine a bit more and to lead through stages of Q1, Q2 and Q3. I don’t think in the dry that would have been possible, and I don’t expect if the race is dry tomorrow to be able to hold on to P3. But I think in the wet, we were definitely quick.

Q: You said that in Baku after qualifying.
CS: I said that in Baku. But in Baku, the Mercedes, the McLarens were starting a bit far back. To be honest, I haven’t looked at the timesheets. It’s an easy place to overtake here. Let’s see what I can do.

Q: The final one from me. Can I just ask you about an incident with Lance Stroll in Q1? Just get your take on what happened as you were rejoining.
CS: Yeah. I went straight in Turn 5. I did one of the 180s that people have to do around here. I knew I was generating a yellow flag at the time, and I was just trying to get the yellow flag to stop as soon as possible and get myself back onto the track. I guess Lance had a yellow flag with me, so I tried to rejoin as heavily as I could and tried to avoid giving more people a yellow flag. But I think we were all on build-ups, trying to get the tyre into temperature, all doing mistakes. It was the beginning of Q1 when I think some people were still on inters, struggling to keep it on track—and that was me. Visibility also was extremely poor.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Lando, just picking up on the conditions. Can you talk a bit about just the sensation in the car? I know you've driven in the wet a lot in your career, but with all the lights, the lack of grip, how cold it is—just how much more difficult does it make it around this circuit?
LN: Yeah, not enough lights around here, to be honest. It wasn’t the most wet session. Some little bits of aquaplaning and stuff, but the hardest part was just trying to avoid white lines, the yellow lines, staying off the paint— the stuff they can't really remove. I wish they could because it's quite a bit more dangerous and tricky, especially when it’s like Q1. It was wet enough that you can’t really see where the lines are—road markings, zebra crossings, whatever—so you don't know where you're braking. It's easy to instantly lock if you brake on the lines, and pretty dangerous from that point of view. It's one of the challenges of street tracks. It's the same in Australia at the beginning of the year. That’s certainly one of the biggest challenges – the kerbs, the lack of room for error around here is pretty tricky. The amount of people that made mistakes in 15-16, end of the lap over the kerbs, losing the rear. Then you’ve got this massive yellow line you have to try and avoid. My thoughts were generally just keeping it in one piece for as long as possible. Even the last corner here—fairly easy flat in the dry—not so easy in the wet, and we had quite a bit of porpoising still. So it was difficult to get the confidence to go flat. For most of qualifying, my biggest loss was just the last kink to end the lap and to start the following lap. So, yeah, difficult. Especially because of the position I’m in—knowing that I just need a good qualifying, a simple one. When I woke up from my nap, I was like, ‘oh God, not what I was looking forward to’. But nice to prove to myself that I could perform well in those conditions and do what I needed to do. The good feeling that I’ve had from the past few weekends has continued—even into the rain—and that’s one of the most reassuring things I’ve had for a while.

Q: (Sahil Kapur – NBC) Question for all three of you. How do you think about that last left-hander off the Strip? When it’s raining, when it’s slippery, do you brake 30, 50—how many metres earlier than usual? And are you just waiting to see how much grip there is in the car before you do what’s next?
CS: Just trying to explain it to people, it's very difficult because I don’t think people know how tricky conditions actually were today. How little grip we had with the low-downforce wings, the low-grip tarmac, the cold tyres. I think in lap one of Q1 when we all went out on Inters, the tyres were just getting cold, and we should have been on extremes. We all boxed for extremes. Those were the two laps where I was expecting three red flags in a row. because I couldn’t even keep it flat out on the straight. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see the white lines. I couldn’t see people in front. I couldn’t see people behind. It’s chaos. And no one enjoys those moments, because when you cannot see and you don’t feel the grip, it’s very, very difficult. But then when it comes to Q3, I think it’s more we’re doing incremental margins—trying to predict how much drier the track is and how much extra grip we’re going to get. But you’re not braking more than, maximum, five metres later, three metres later, which when you arrive at 350, it’s not like you can judge very well those three metres—you’re just guessing.
LN: Yeah, I think Carlos explained it pretty well. I think the tricky thing is always just when you’re on a quali lap, you always want to brake five metres later. And normally when you try to brake five metres later is when it can easily go wrong, you know? Yeah, the trickiest part is easily Q1. Just because you're just trying to keep it on the track. Not crash. Not take yourself out. One day, I just hope—apart from having a two-seater F1 car—people can get that sensation of just how nerve-wracking and scary it can be at times. How unpredictable. You know, like we said—we're surprised that no one really had a crash. If someone was to have a crash here, it could be a pretty huge crash. Especially like Turn 10–11, before you go onto the Strip. Even that, going flat, even the tiniest kinks, was pretty sketchy as well—even on lap one. So, yeah, not the nicest of challenges for Formula 1, but it’s the way it is.
MV: Yeah, perfect explanation from both drivers.

Q: (Rodrigo França – Car Magazine Brazil) Lando, congratulations on your pole. After winning in Brazil, you made a beautiful tribute to Gil de Ferran. Could you please talk a little more about his importance in your career?
LN: Yeah. I mean, Gil was in some ways a little mentor to me—from his experience of being a racing driver, a pretty damn successful racing driver. And then, when he joined McLaren, he was one of the key parts of the big turnaround that we had over the last three, four years. He was one of the guys that was just next to Zak and Andrea, so very high up, guiding, advising, giving his experience, trying to help out as much as possible. And I think one thing you always got from Gil was just honesty—whether he made you feel like crap or he made you feel good, he was always just pretty honest. And he was the kind of guy that you could always accept those kinds of comments from. If you had a bad day, he would say, "That was pretty bad." But then he would understand the experience of things, the mentality of you as a driver, and he’d be able to help out. And he helped me for sure in many different situations over the last few years. So yeah, it was sad when we lost him, because I’m sure he’d be very proud of where we are today. He was very much part of our family at McLaren. And I would have loved if he could experience the two Constructors’ Championships that we’ve got now, and obviously, for us as drivers, fighting for the Drivers’ Championship. He was a very special guy that achieved a lot in his career and was very helpful over the last few years for me as well. And just one of the guys you could always have a good laugh with—even when you didn’t have to talk about racing. You’d just talk about life, or parties, or whatever it was—life away from Formula One and the track. He was always a great guy to hang out with and have a good chat with. So yeah, I miss him. And therefore, in his home in Brazil, it was nice to think of him again.

Q: (Jesus Balseiro – Diario AS) Question for Carlos. In Baku, you also had a pretty strong pace on Sunday. So what do you think you can race for tomorrow? And also, how much risk can you afford compared to Lando and Max, because they’re fighting for the championship and you’re not?
CS: I think it will be more down to the pace rather than the risk that anyone can afford. I’m also starting up front, and it’s a pretty good result if we can bring it home. So I think we’re all more or less in similar positions. For me, it’s more about trying to hold on to that P3 if I can, given that there will be very fast cars coming behind with the Mercs, the other McLaren, Ferraris that were strong in the dry. So yeah, I’m gonna give it my best shot. I mean, you saw me in Baku or in Austin—when I’m up there fighting for the podium, I just try not to make mistakes and see if I can make myself as wide as possible and see if we can bring home a stronger than expected result. And I’ll be pushing to make it happen.

Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Lando, I know you've been talking for ages about one race at a time, one lap at a time, etc. But what’s your mindset going into the race—especially knowing Max can be pretty tasty going into the first corner?
LN: Yeah, but I look forward to it. I'm excited for it. He’s been quick and if you expect anything less, then you don’t know what he’s capable of. So yeah, I expect a battle. I expect a battle through the whole race. But at the same time, I’m here to win. I’m not here to not take risks. I still want to go out and win tomorrow. So I’ll be making sure I can do everything that I can. But it’s still one step at a time—get a good start, good opening lap, that kind of thing—and just go from there.