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Norris secured pole for the F1 Sprint in Shanghai in unusual circumstances after his lap was deleted for track limits before being reinstated.
The McLaren driver proved fastest in wet conditions as rain hit the circuit for the final eight-minute segment of the session.
It was not error-free for the Brit, who abandoned his initial lap and left the road at the final corner moments before starting his final flying lap.
Teams had fitted intermediate tyres for the segment and drivers circulated throughout in case conditions improved with most recording several flying laps. It’s an approach McLaren and Norris adopted.
An off at the final corner on his second attempted hot lap (having aborted his first) was penalised by the stewards who deleted his following lap time.
While comparatively standard practice at most venues is to delete the following lap when a driver goes off at the final corner, a newly installed gravel trap meant any off at that corner was immediately self-penalising.
“It was reinstated by the FIA themselves,” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told Sky Sports.
“Definitely because you go off at the last corner, you launch at much lower speed, and effectively Lando loses almost three-tenths because he’s been off at the previous last corner.”
Stella added that Norris’ fastest lap, which left him 1.261s faster than Lewis Hamilton, was without issue or incident.
Though his driver lost out on pole when Norris’ lap was reinstated, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had no issue with race control’s decision.
“I haven’t seen the detail, I’ve just seen he has been four tyres off-track,” he said.
“But honestly, that was even slower, so he could probably have gone faster, so I’m okay with that.”
Curiously, Max Verstappen also ran wide at the final corner but did not have his next lap deleted as he qualified fourth best.
“You only have three laps, the first two I aborted on both so the last lap was all or nothing,” Norris recounted.
“But it was getting wetter and wetter so actually the conditions on the final two laps were a lot worse than the second lap at least.
“I was a little bit nervous that I made a few mistakes, started to aquaplane quite a bit, but it’s good fun.
“It gets your heart going, and to end up on top is exactly what we wanted. So a nice surprise and a good position for tomorrow.”
While Norris will start from pole, his team-mate Oscar Piastri will start eighth, his efforts not helped by wheelspin.
“He had an issue unfortunately coming out of the hairpin, because of the wheelspin his gearbox went into neutral apparently, and he lost a lot of time,” Stella explained.
“Otherwise, we could have had two drivers high on the grid for the Sprint.
“But overall, a good session for us, we are happy.”
Norris will line up on pole for the F1 Sprint in China, which begins at 13:00 AEST.
