Mexico Grand Prix Qualifying – Brilliant Sainz takes a dominant pole position for Ferrari

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz will start from pole for tomorrow’s Mexican Grand Prix.

The Spaniard took his first pole position since Singapore last year with an excellent pair of laps in the third qualifying session.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will start second ahead of championship rival Lando Norris, with Charles Leclerc a slightly disappointing fourth after a mistake cost him and Ferrari a chance of a front row lockout.

In the last week Ferrari have proven themselves to be spoilers for the two main championship protagonists, with a 1-2 last week headed by Leclerc in Austin  ahead of Verstappen and Norris.

Norris is 57 points behind but couldn’t have picked a better placed to start third from, with a 730 metre run to the first corner sure to offer the chance of a tow away from the grid.

The first qualifying session brought about two huge shocks in a frenetic and fast paced opening 18 minutes.

Home hero Sergio Perez was knocked out and will start 18th in the Red Bull, while Oscar Piastri ended his run of Q3 appearances that stretched back the entirety of 2024 to line up 17th.

That result is likely to damage Perez more than Piastri, whose error strewn session was much more of an anomaly for the man who was quickest in final practice versus the Mexican, who has been struggling all weekend.

They were joined by the less surprising trio of Franco Colapinto in 16th, Esteban Ocon in 19th and Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu in 20th.

The second qualifying session was ended ten seconds early as the RB of Yuki Tsunoda, who was on a lap destined to reach the top ten, crashed out at Turn 12 to leave himself stranded in 11th ahead of teammate Liam Lawson.

The two Aston Martins will share Row 7 with Fernando Alonso, on his 400th Grand Prix weekend, starting 13th and Lance Stroll edging Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas out for 14th.

Ferrari had looked like they were going to battle for the second row heading into Q3 with Norris and Verstappen having been the class of the field, but finally got their act together as Sainz set an early benchmark of 1:16.055.

That lap would have been enough for pole on its own, but he went again to dip below the 1:16s to clock 1:15.946 – a quarter of a second clear of the field.

Leclerc’s wobble in the second sector was compounded by another error at the final corner when the Monegasque was looking at second on the grid, but Ferrari will be satisfied nonetheless.

The Scuderia have designs on the Constructors’ Championship even still, being eight points behind Red Bull and 48 behind leaders McLaren with five races to go.

Elsewhere in the third session, George Russell beat Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to fifth in the final session, while Haas’ impressive form continued with seventh for Kevin Magnussen and an unfortunate tenth for Nico Hulkenberg.

They sandwiched Pierre Gasly’s resurgent Alpine and Alex Albon’s Williams in eighth and ninth,