The 21-year-old Briton scored a sensationa🔯l shock pole position in a thrilling rain-affected qualifying at Sochi having gambled on slick tyres with the track rapidly drying out.

Norris beat the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz and George Russell’s Williams to grab pole after Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton could only set the fourth-best time after crashing twic🌸e in a dramatic end to Q3.

And now N൲orris is aimingꦉ to convert his maiden pole into a breakthrough grand prix win, though he acknowledges he will have his work cut out.

“Do I think we can win? I would love to answer,” Norris said after qua🦩lifying. “I will t꧟ry my best and I will go for it. I believe we can, there’s an opportunity for it.

“But Mercedes are still as quicဣk as they have been all season. This is probably one of their best circuits of the whole season. So it’s going to be a go💧od challenge, but I’m up for it.”

The result comes two weeks after Daniel Ricciardo led hoꦐme Norris in a 1-2 at the Italian Grand Prix to end McLaren’s near-decade-long winning drought in F1.

“Aಌfter last weekend what do you expect? Another r𝕴ace win for McLaren would be lovely,” Norris added.

“꧟I don’t expect so, I think Mercedes are a long way up the road from us and Red Bull probably similar.

“I think we have decent pace. We saw [on Friday] that the cars are in a good position, 𒈔in the wet 🏅now and also in the dry.

“[It’s] a long run down to Turn 1 or Turn 2, whatever you want to say, so I hav🥀e to look forward to that and make sure I prepare for that well.

“But I think either con♑ditions I look forward to, we can score some good points tomorrow, we can have a good race,༺ because we are in the best position possible.”

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl believes Norris will have a much harder time keeping Hamilton’s Mercedes behind despite managing to halt the seven-time 🃏world champion for sustained periods last time🗹 out in Italy.

Mercedes is unbeaten in Russia having won every single race at the Sochi Autodrom since it joiꦆned the F1 calendar in 2014.

“When we have norma♒l dry conditions, especially Mercedes was in a different league I would say,” Seidl admitted.

“This is a track they are historically quite strong and they’ve shown that [n Friday]. So I guess it will be♛ very diff♛icult to keep especially Lewis behind, not being far away from us.

“At the same time you’ve seen at previous races if you start ahead there’s always a chance to do something great and that’s what we want to try again, 𒐪without getting too focused on the win.

“We will prepare this rac🍰e again similar to how we have done all season. We know we have a strong team in terms of executing the races, strategy, in terms of pit stops, we have two strong drivers, and we will have a go again.”