 Irreducibility of the split SL3 principal series

For $N=q-1$, write a diagonal-torus character as $\theta (\mathrm{diag}(a,b,(ab{)}^{-1}))=\chi (a{)}^r\chi (b{)}^s$, with $\chi$ a generator of the character group of ${\mathbb{F}}_q^{\times }$. Its Weyl stabilizer is trivial exactly when $r,s,r-s$ are all nonzero modulo $N$ and, if $3\mid N$, the unordered pair $\{r,s\}$ is not $\{N/3,2N/3\}$. The first conditions exclude transpositions; the exceptional pair excludes cyclic permutation of three characters modulo a common twist.