Charles Leclerc achieved pole position again in the Mexican Grand Prix of Formula 1. Ferrari dominated in Saturday’s qualifying at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, locking out the front row of the grid.
Qualifying summary
Q1 was led by Max Verstappen (Red Bull), who was 0.142s faster than Oscar Piastri (McLaren). Leclerc was fourth in this initial phase of qualifying, 0.302s off the top. In the battle to avoid elimination, there was a big surprise.
Lando Norris (McLaren) failed to recover from a failed attempt to set a good time on medium tires and ended up in 19th. The British driver was briefly behind Logan Sargeant (Williams), but the American lost his two timed laps for exceeding track limits. He would later be penalized ten places for a yellow flag infringement, while Williams was fined €20,000 for leaving equipment in the pitlane.
Esteban Ocon (Alpine) also missed out, failing to qualify by 0.064s. Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) were also eliminated. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) qualified, but spun in the final minutes, bringing out yellow flags and hindering the laps of some drivers.
If Verstappen finished on top in Q1, in Q2 it was Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) setting the pace, beating the Dutchman by a mere 54 milliseconds. Mercedes showed that they could be in the fight for the top positions, with George Russell in third. But the biggest surprise was Daniel Ricciardo’s fourth place in the AlphaTauri. Leclerc was sixth.
In the elimination zone, there were no unexpected events. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) failed to set a time, as his main mission was to give Ricciardo a tow to allow his teammate to enter Q3. Thus, he finished in 15th.
Like Ocon in Q1, the highest-placed eliminated driver in Q2 was an Alpine driver: Pierre Gasly, in 11th, missing out by 81 milliseconds. Nico Hülkenberg (Haas), Alonso, and Alexander Albon (Williams) also missed out. The Anglo-Thai driver lost his best time for exceeding track limits at turn two.
The Q3 in Mexico City arrived with a drop in temperatures, and Verstappen was naturally the top contender to come out on top. However, Leclerc was the leader after the first runs ahead of Sainz by 0.067s, while Verstappen was third.
In the second attempts, neither of the Ferrari drivers were able to improve, but they were also not overtaken. Verstappen improved, but not enough to do better than the third time, 0.097s off pole position. Ricciardo once again surprised with the fourth time, even ahead of Sergio Pérez’s Red Bull.
Hamilton finished sixth ahead of Oscar Piastri (McLaren), with Russell in eighth. The Alfa Romeo cars completed the top ten with Valtteri Bottas ahead of Guanyu Zhou.
After the session, Verstappen, Hamilton, Russell, and Alonso were investigated for possible infractions during qualifying. However, none of these four drivers were reprimanded, so the results remained valid.
Alonso, Russell, and Verstappen were investigated for allegedly unjustifiably blocking other drivers at the exit of the pit lane, but they defended themselves by demonstrating that it was a result of complying with the maximum delta time. Hamilton, on the other hand, was investigated for a possible yellow flag violation, which was concluded not to have occurred.
Results:
