Lando Norris put in a sensational lap to take his 19th career pole at the Spanish GP. Image: XPB Images
The reigning world champion had looked well off the pace heading into Q3, but found a second from his time in the second part of qualifying to take his 19th career pole position with a 1m31.824s.
It was particularly impressive given the lack of pace McLaren had shown so far in Spain, as well as Norris sitting out the majority of Friday running with a gearbox issue.
Antonelli produced a sensational lap of his own in the closing moments, taking provisional pole away from Lewis Hamilton with less than 20 seconds remaining.
However, the championship leader had to settle for second, with Max Verstappen’s late lap also not enough to improve his position as the Dutchman finished third.
Hamilton ended the session fourth ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc, while George Russell finished sixth.
Oscar Piastri couldn’t match the pace of his teammate, ending the session 0.470s behind Norris in seventh.
Liam Lawson was eighth, 0.492s away from pole and just three tenths behind Verstappen, with Franco Colapinto and Arvid Lindblad rounding out the top 10.
Norris was thrilled with his pole lap, declaring it one of the best of his career.
“I’m shocked. I’m a little bit surprised to be here now,” he said.
“My God, it was probably one of the best laps I’ve done ever in my career. So very, very happy. Very proud. Very happy for the team.
“Just one of those laps where everything came together. I had a good idea of what I wanted to do. But it was whether my brain let me do it on the last lap. And everything pretty much worked perfectly. So I’m just very happy.
“One of those laps where you look at the lap time at the end and you’re like, oh shit, that was pretty good.”
He said the difficult nature of the track had made the lap stand out even more, adding that he had nearly crashed into the wall on his final lap.
“It’s easy to get tense around here, and there’s a lot of walls that come at you pretty quickly,” he said.
“Honestly, I’ve been feeling pretty confident and the car was feeling good. So I felt good out there. I just wasn’t doing what I wanted. I wasn’t quite relaxed.
“And the last lap I just took a good breath and everything kind of came together. So it was pretty much perfect.
“Bar the last corner, I thought I was in the wall. And I thought the boys are going to have to repair the car tonight. So it could have been a little bit better.
“But nonetheless, like I said, one of the best laps I’ve done. Just everything that I wanted to achieve, I achieved.
“That’s one of the moments where you’re kind of in that flow state, and it puts a big smile on my face. So I’m happy.”
Antonelli said he had done everything possible to claim pole, but added Norris had simply done a better job.
“I thought it was a good lap, but then this guy just snatched it away. So good job to them,” he said.
“On my side, very intense qualifying. Difficult to get the balance right with the track being so hot.
“The lap was pretty clean. Obviously it’s not easy to put the things together on a track like this which is quite tricky.
“But overall I think we did a good job. And now we’ll try to, you know, see what we can do tomorrow.”
Verstappen, meanwhile, said he was happy with qualifying third.
“I think for us it was a very good qualifying,” he said.
“For me to be third I think is a great result. I think we made the car feel quite decent in qualifying and I could attack corners the way I liked.
“So yeah, for us, I think qualifying is a very good result.”
Verstappen topped Q2, beating Antonelli by 0.160s, with the Ferrari pair of Hamilton and Leclerc just behind, while Lawson held on to fifth, just 0.349s behind his teammate at the top.
Despite showing pace in FP3, the Audi pair of Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto weren’t able to make it into the final part of qualifying, finishing 11th and 12th respectively.
Esteban Ocon was 13th for Haas, while Italian Grand Prix polesitter Pierre Gasly couldn’t repeat last week’s heroics, failing to make it into Q3 and finishing the session in 14th.
Yuki Tsunoda couldn’t join his Racing Bulls teammate Lindblad in the top 10 and will line up 15th, while Alex Albon was 16th for Williams.
Only 21 cars took to the Madring for Q1, with Oliver Bearman unable to take part due to the damage sustained in his crash during the earlier FP3 session.
The session was topped by Russell, whose 1m33.211s on the final lap edged out Antonelli and Lawson, with the Red Bull driver just 0.099s away from topping his first session for the team.
Home favourite Carlos Sainz was by far the biggest disappointment of the opening part of qualifying, unable to progress to Q2 after finishing 17th and missing out on the second part of the session by just 0.005s.
It was a double blow for the home fans, with Fernando Alonso also failing to make it out of Q1 after finishing directly behind Sainz in 18th.
The pair were joined in elimination by both Cadillacs of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, while Lance Stroll joined Bearman in not setting a time in Q1 due to a water pressure issue, with the Canadian set to start from the back of the grid after opting for a power unit change ahead of the race.
The Spanish Grand Prix gets underway at 3pm local time Sunday (11pm AEST).
Results: Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix, Qualifying
Pos.
No.
Driver
Team
Q1
Q2
Q3
1
1
Lando Norris
McLaren
1:33.469
1:32.873
1:31.824
2
12
Kimi Antonelli
Mercedes
1:33.267
1:32.591
1:31.835
3
3
Max Verstappen
Red Bull Racing
1:33.381
1:32.431
1:31.964
4
44
Lewis Hamilton
Ferrari
1:33.531
1:32.710
1:32.013
5
16
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
1:33.532
1:32.755
1:32.019
6
63
George Russell
Mercedes
1:33.211
1:32.850
1:32.149
7
81
Oscar Piastri
McLaren
1:33.829
1:33.204
1:32.294
8
30
Liam Lawson
Red Bull Racing
1:33.310
1:32.780
1:32.316
9
43
Franco Colapinto
Alpine
1:33.963
1:33.038
1:32.903
10
41
Arvid Lindblad
Racing Bulls
1:34.340
1:33.204
1:33.041
11
27
Nico Hulkenberg
Audi
1:34.417
1:33.223
12
5
Gabriel Bortoleto
Audi
1:33.986
1:33.388
13
31
Esteban Ocon
Haas F1 Team
1:34.667
1:33.667
14
10
Pierre Gasly
Alpine
1:34.246
1:33.753
15
22
Yuki Tsunoda
Racing Bulls
1:34.311
1:34.084
16
23
Alexander Albon
Williams
1:35.307
1:35.532
17
55
Carlos Sainz
Williams
1:35.312
18
14
Fernando Alonso
Aston Martin
1:35.388
19
11
Sergio Perez
Cadillac
1:35.913
20
77
Valtteri Bottas
Cadillac
1:38.011
21
87
Oliver Bearman
Haas F1 Team
No time
22
18
Lance Stroll
Aston Martin
No time