Norris, who was last on pole at the Sochi Autodrom back in 2021, had trailed Verstappen after the opening Q3 runs, but produced a stunning final lap of 1m 11.383s to outpace the Dutchman by two hundredths of a second.
Mercedes converted their encouraging practice pace into a competitive qualifying display, with Lewis Hamilton managing to turn the tables on team mate George Russell as they took P3 and P4 on the grid for Sunday’s race.
Charles Leclerc and home favourite Carlos Sainz had to settle for fifth and sixth in what was another tight session around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, while Pierre Gasly starred en route to seventh for Alpine.
Sergio Perez was eighth in his Red Bull, but will drop three places on the grid with his penalty from Canada, promoting the other Alpine of Esteban Ocon and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who had a scruffy Q3 and failed to log a time.
Fernando Alonso gave it his all to reach the pole position shootout on home soil but ultimately missed out on Q3 by just a couple of hundredths of a second, having been pushed into the Q2 drop zone by former team mate Ocon.
Alonso was joined in the drop zone by Kick Sauber drivers Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu in respective P12 and P15 slots, with Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg and the other Aston Martin of Lance Stroll slotting between them.
Magnussen could not quite match the pace of team mate Hulkenberg as he fell at the first qualifying hurdle in 16th position, the Dane just missing out on a Q2 spot to Stroll, who appeared to be impeded by Logan Sargeant during the Q1 phase.
A raft of updates this weekend brought the promise of cementing RB’s position at the front of F1’s midfield battle, but their practice struggles carried over to qualifying and left Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo in a disappointing P17 and P18 respectively.
