Max Verstappen took pole position for the Mexican Grand Prix after beating the Mercedes drivers of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton by three tenths of a second.
Verstappen secured his sixth pole position of the season, improving on his own provisional pole time with his final lap. Russell took second on the grid despite ruining his final lap by running wide at turn 12. Hamilton will start third on the grid ahead of Sergio Perez in fourth.
Q1
The promoters of the Mexican Grand Prix could not have asked for more idyllic conditions at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez with the grandstands packed and millions of television viewers tuning in for the start of the qualifying. Track temperatures were breaching 50 degrees when the two Haas drivers of Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen became the first cars to venture out onto the track in tandem.
Schumacher set the initial benchmark of a 1’21.024, but that was quickly beaten by Alexander Albon’s Williams. Sergio Perez provoked more loud cheers when he became the first of the front-runners to set a time and go quickest, as Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen abandoned his first push lap after the rear of his car stepped out through turn three.
The two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr then moved to the top of the times, before Verstappen’s second attempt at his first timed lap put him quickest by almost three tenths on the soft tyres. Lewis Hamilton went third on his first flying lap, while team mate George Russell moved into fifth place after complaining of understeer in his Mercedes.
As the drivers started to return to the pits after their first runs, Schumacher sat in 16th as the first car in danger of elimination, one tenth ahead of Albon. Sebastian Vettel, Kevin Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi all required an improvement if they wanted to reach Q3.
At the chequered flag, only Zhou Guanyu, who had dropped into the danger zone, could deny Schumacher a place in Q2. Fortunately for Alfa Romeo, Zhou did improve by enough to go 14th, which knocked Schumacher back into 16th and sealed his elimination. Joining Schumacher out in Q1 were the two Aston Martins of Vettel and Stroll and the two Williams of Albon and Latifi – the former had his last lap time deleted after running off track at the esses, although it was slower than his previous effort anyway.
Hamilton ended the session on top after performing an extra run at the end while Verstappen remained in his garage. Perez, who complained of problems…
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