Verstappen beats Ferrari duo to stunning Mexico pole
Red Bull Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen ended Ferrari’s run of qualifying supremacy with a stunning lap to claim pole position at the Mexican Grand Prix.
Ferrari had looked the team to beat heading into qualifying but Verstappen secured his second pole position of the season by turning in a fantastic 1m14.758s around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit.
Red Bull Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen ended Ferrari’s run of qualifying supremacy with a stunning lap to claim pole position at the Mexican Grand Prix.
Ferrari had looked the team to beat heading into qualifying but Verstappen secured his second pole position of the season by turning in a fantastic 1m14.758s around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit.
The Dutchman subsequently ended Ferrari’s streak of consecutive pole positions, a run which had stretched back to the Belgian Grand Prix following the summer break.
Verstappen’s pole came 12 months after he was denied becoming F1’s youngest-ever pole sitter in Mexico by former Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo. He will be looking to convert his second career pole into a third straight victory in Mexico, after winning the last two races in 2017 and 2018.
Charles Leclerc was the fastest Ferrari driver but was some 0.266s adrift of Verstappen’s pole lap, while Sebastian Vettel ended up four-tenths behind.
Mercedes struggled to match the pace of its rivals as Lewis Hamilton secured fourth on the grid, finishing over half a second down. Alexander Albon claimed fifth as he split the Mercedes pair, with Valtteri Bottas suffering a big crash right at the end of Q3.
The Finn was looking to improve on his opening effort but lost control of his W10 coming out of the final corner, before slamming into the barriers. He will start sixth on the grid as a result.
Carlos Sainz once again was best of the rest as he sealed a strong seventh, three-tenths clear of McLaren teammate Lando Norris in eighth.
Completing the top 10 were the Toro Rosso pairing of Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly, with the latter battling illness to set a time good enough for 10th on the grid and just a tenth slower than his teammate.
Home-favourite Sergio Perez missed out Q3 by just 0.008s as he finished 11th in his Racing Point, narrowly pipping the Renault duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo in 12th and 13th.
With both McLaren cars starting inside the top 10, Renault faces a difficult task to claw back some of its 43-point deficit to the Woking squad in Mexico in the ongoing scrap to come out on top in this year’s midfield battle.
Alfa Romeo drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi were less than a tenth behind in what proved to a tight second segment of qualifying, with Raikkonen out-qualifying his teammate for the first time since September’s Italian Grand Prix.
Racing Point driver Lance Stroll was three-tenths shy of making it into Q2, with the Canadian reporting he had “no grip” on his way to setting a time only good enough for 16th.
It was a miserable qualifying session for the Haas duo as the American squad’s struggles showed no signs of stopping in Mexico.
Both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean were unable to progress from Q1 and will start from 17th and 18th respectively, with only the Williams pair behind them on the grid.
George Russell outpaced Williams teammate Robert Kubica by a whopping 1.356s for the 19th-fastest time to maintain his 100 percent qualifying record over the Pole in 2019.
Ricciardo and Kvyat will be investigated after qualifying for a pitlane incident that occurred as Q1 got underway.
The Mexican Grand Prix takes place on Sunday at 1310 local time in Mexico City (1910 BST).
