Sainz flies to Mexican GP pole ahead of Verstappen and Norris · RaceFans

Carlos Sainz Jnr took pole position for the Mexican Grand Prix after beating Max Verstappen and Lando Norris by two tenths of a second.

The Ferrari driver set two laps in Q3 that would have been good enough for pole. He will start ahead of the two championship leaders, with Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc starting behind them in fourth.

Q1

The opening phase of qualifying got underway with the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr both opting for medium tyres for their first runs. Mercedes and McLarens also opted for the harder rubber but both Red Bull drivers opted for soft tyres, Sergio Perez heading out much earlier than his team mate.

Unsurprisingly, Verstappen set the early pace with a 1’16.998 on the softs, two tenths of a second ahead of Lando Norris on the mediums. Poor laps for Perez and Oscar Piastri left them down in 12th and 15th places, respectively.

Those on the mediums soon found themselves in the drop zone as the gap between the fastest time and elimination in 16th was well under a second. Piastri found himself under intense pressure when his first lap on softs was deleted for exceeding track limits at turn 12, leaving him down in 19th with just a handful of minutes remaining.

Piastri improved, but only to 14th. Within 30 seconds of completing his lap, he was back in the drop zone. With no time to start another lap, the McLaren driver dropped out of qualifying at the first hurdle. Perez too had failed to put in a good enough time and was also out in 18th, to the great disappointment of his home fans.

Franco Colapinto could not follow team mate Alexander Albon into Q2 and was out in 17th, with Esteban Ocon and Zhou Guanyu the two slowest drivers to be cut.

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Q1 result

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Q2

Verstappen took a fresh set of soft tyres for the first of the second phase of qualifying and immediately posting a 1’16.629, which Sainz fell shy of by four tenths on his first attempt. Leclerc’s first effort on soft tyres was deleted as he cut the inside kerb at the apex of turn two, something his race engineer Bryan Bozzi had warned him about during practice.

Norris saw Verstappen’s 1’16.6 and raised him a 1’16.3, going straight to the top of the timing screen. The Mercedes of Russell and Hamilton moved into third and fourth, ahead of Sainz.

With Perez and Piastri both out, Leclerc was the only driver of the top four teams not…