LANDO Norris has qualified in 11th place for tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix after being eliminated in the second qualifying session in Barcelona.
It looked like the 22-year-old from Glastonbury had done enough to make it into the third and final phase of qualifying, but his fastest lap time was deleted after he exceeded track limits by a few millimetres at turn 12.
Championship leader Charles Leclerc qualified on pole with his second Q3 lap after spinning towards the end of his first attempt.
Challenger Max Verstappen reported having “no power” shortly before Leclerc put in the fastest time of the session and was told to pit by his Red Bull mechanics.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner later told Sky Sports F1 this was caused by an issue with his drag reduction system (DRS).
Carlos Sainz qualified in third at his home track ahead of George Russell, Sergio Pérez, Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen, and Norris's teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
Mick Schumacher, who appeared in Q3 for the first time in his career at Norris's expense, qualified in tenth.
That's it for Q2. Daniel makes it through in P9 after a solid lap, but Lando just misses out in P11 after having a lap time deleted. #SpanishGP 🇪🇸 pic.twitter.com/ELFBMDqsju
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) May 21, 2022
After Norris was eliminated, his race engineer Will Joseph said over the radio: "Lando, I'm sorry, we had our lap time deleted, so that puts us out in P11, I'm afraid."
Norris had earlier been investigated by the stewards for allegedly impeding Alpine driver Fernando Alonso towards the end of the first qualifying session but no further action was taken.
He also needed to react quickly to avoid contact with Lance Stroll in the pitlane after the Canadian driver was released into his path by his Aston Martin mechanics.
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