Norris edges Antonelli to secure pole position in 1st Spanish GP in Madrid in 45 years

MADRID (AP) — Lando Norris outdueled Kimi Antonelli to take a big step toward winning the first Formula 1 race in Madrid in more than four decades by securing the important pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday.

Antonelli had been the most dominant driver the whole weekend in the Spanish capital, but Norris came through with the fastest time in his final qualifying attempt at the new Madring urban circuit that won't yield many overtaking opportunities.

Norris set a time of 1 minute 31.824 seconds, one hundredth of a second ahead of Antonelli, who was coming off an epic come-from-behind win in front of his home fans in Monza.

The 20-year-old Antonelli leads Mercedes' teammate George Russell by 66 points in the drivers’ standings.

Max Verstappen will start third with Red Bull, followed by the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton — who crashed in the final practice session earlier Saturday — and Charles Leclerc. Russell was next.

It was a mostly clean session after two red flags affected the final practice session earlier Saturday at the unforgiving circuit that mixes existing roads with purpose-built sections.

The 5.4-kilometer (3.3-mile) Madring track has been giving drivers little margin for error.

Antonelli locked up tires and went straight but avoided crashing earlier in the qualifying session. Russell brushed the wall at one point.

Haas’ Oliver Bearman did not participate in qualifying because of a crash in the final practice session earlier Saturday.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll also did not join qualifying after taking a grid penalty for switching power-unit components.

As expected, the two Spaniards couldn't give the home fans a lot of reason to celebrate.

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso will start 18th with Aston Martin, while Williams' Carlos Sainz will be 17th. Neither advanced past the first qualifying stage.

Organizers expected a total attendance of nearly 350,000 people at the track in the Spanish capital.

The Spanish GP is returning to the Madrid region for the first time in 45 years. It took place at the Jarama circuit in the capital’s outskirts in 1981. The Jerez de la Frontera track in southern Spain hosted races from 1986-90, and in 1994 and 1997. Barcelona has been hosting races in Spain the past few years. Madring signed a contract with F1 through 2035.

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Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands steers his car during the qualifying session for the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (Violeta Santos Moura/Pool Photo via AP)

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain gets pushed back into his garage during the qualifying session for the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (Violeta Santos Moura/Pool Photo via AP)

Cadillac driver Sergio Perez of Mexico steers his car during the qualifying session ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy steers his car during the qualifying session for the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (Violeta Santos Moura/Pool Photo via AP)

McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain steers his car during the third free practice ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix, in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands steers his car during the third free practice ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of Australia steers his car during the third free practice ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Williams driver Alexander Albon of Thailand makes a pit stop during the third free practice ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain steers his car during the third free practice ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy steers his car during the third free practice ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix in Madrid, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

The Atlantic is quiet — record quiet — this hurricane season thanks to an enormous El Nino that crushes storms before they get going.

No Atlantic hurricanes have formed yet this year and none are likely to form for at least another week, even though this would normally be the peak of the season, according to the National Hurricane Center. Only five relatively weak and brief tropical storms have spun up this season.

On Saturday, 2026 set a record for the longest a season has begun without a storm that has reached winds of 74 mph (119 kph) to qualify as a hurricane — at least in the satellite era, said Nick Novella, a meteorologist at the government's Weather Prediction Center. Before the 1950s there were a few years where no hurricanes were recorded this late in the season, but meteorologists don't trust those records because ocean monitoring wasn't complete.

Overall hurricane activity using a measurement that factors in the number of storms, their strength and how long they last is also at a post-1950 record low, according to Colorado State University hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach. Storm activity in the Atlantic is only 7% of normal for this time of year.

People shouldn't let down their guard because it just takes one storm, even during an El Nino, to be catastrophic. Several experts pointed to 1992, which kicked off late but nastily with devastating Hurricane Andrew.

“It’s really staggering, just how inhospitable the Atlantic is to anything that could form a tropical cyclone right now,” said Kristen Corbosiero, a University at Albany atmospheric science professor. “Anything that tries to form is just getting this triple whammy” of winds that decapitate a storm, dry air that starves it and downward pushing winds that basically stomp it.

Those three forces are classic impacts of El Nino, the natural and temporary warming of parts of the equatorial Pacific that warps and warms weather worldwide, five experts told The Associated Press.

"It's just hammering the Atlantic. It’s just impressive,” Klotzbach said. “We haven’t even had anything really even close to a hurricane.”

The biggest El Nino effect in the Atlantic is record-strong wind shear, which is when strong easterly winds hit a storm system at low levels while strong westerly winds push it the other way at upper altitudes. The result is that they “tear apart” the storm, Corbosiero said.

In the area between Africa and the Caribbean where the strongest storms normally form and head west, that wind shear is about 45 mph (74 kph) more than what a tropical cyclone can withstand, Corbosiero said. That's an unheard of level, she said.

“Their heads are cut off before they even have a chance,” said University of Miami hurricane expert Brian McNoldy.

The one area where wind shear hasn't been high has been the Gulf of Mexico and those storms tend to really get going later in the season, so there could still be some strong ones coming to that region, Corbosiero and others warned.

Along with the dry air that starves the storm, African dust is choking it and there are fewer “seeds” of stormy weather that could develop, all classic El Nino signs, the experts said. And in the Atlantic, high pressure is pushing the air downward, which also hinders storms from forming, they said.

This is all despite warm waters — the world's oceans have been record hot for 100 days — that normally feed storms. It shows the power of El Nino to overcome that, Klotzbach said.

The trouble is the Atlantic waters, while warm, haven't warmed up nearly as quickly as the atmosphere above, which got hotter quickly as part of El Nino, said Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel. His research found what matters more than just the water temperature is the difference in temperature between the air and the water; because hurricanes are powered by the flow of heat from the ocean to the air, the higher that is, the less storm activity there will be.

The waters of the Atlantic are a few months behind the atmosphere in feeling the El Nino effect. But next year, as the El Nino winds down and cools closer to normal, the warm water will persist, which will increase the odds for next season to be extra busy, Emanuel said.

Just as El Nino traditionally dampens Atlantic hurricane season, it tends to rev up tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific, with moist air and little wind shear. And so far this year, storm activity in the eastern Pacific is nearly double normal, with hurricanes lasting much longer than usual. In the central Pacific, activity is about 40% more than normal.

“It's just a party out there, one right after the other in the eastern Pacific,” Klotzbach said.

While the Atlantic has had only five small tropical storms, there have been 16 named storms in the eastern Pacific and 20 in the central Pacific.

Hawaii has been hit twice. El Nino tends to push storms farther west than other years, Corbosiero said.

Because scientists have long known about El Nino's effects on storm activity in both oceans, forecasters months ago predicted a slow Atlantic hurricane season.

“I don't think anyone really foresaw it being this quiet,” McNoldy said. “This is quite remarkable.”

This story corrects the wind speed in paragraph 3.

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