Mexico City (AFP) – Carlos Sainz seized pole position for Sunday's Mexico City Grand Prix with a consummate performance for Ferrari in Saturday's qualifying session, outpacing Red Bull’s defending champion Max Verstappen.
The Spaniard, who leaves the team at the end of the season, clocked one minute and 15.946 seconds to beat series leader and three time champion Verstappen, whose first and fastest lap in the top 10 shoot-out was deleted, by 0.225 seconds.
It was Sainz's sixth career pole and completed a run of qualifying fourth, third and second in the last three Mexican events.
"I am very happy with that and to be on pole,” said Sainz, who is set to leave Ferrari for Williams next year, having been replaced for 2025 by Hamilton.
"I had a great couple of laps and it is very difficult here with lots of sliding. My laps were almost identical and perfect. It is such a tricky circuit!”
Championship rivals Verstappen and Lando Norris set up the prospect of another spectacular duel in Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix when they qualified second and third on Saturday.
Both drivers declared themselves satisfied with their starting positions – and both know they will be on their own as their Red Bull and McLaren teams' second drivers Sergio Perez and Oscar Piastri failed to qualify in the top half of the grid.
“I wasn’t sure it would be possible to be on the front row,” said three-time champion and series leader Verstappen, whose first fastest lap in Q3 was deleted because he exceeded track limits.
"So, to do it makes me very happy! I felt a lot of pressure as I barely did any laps on Friday and we were doing a lot of catch-up. I needed to have a good qualifying.
"This is probably one of the hardest tracks to get right – low downforce, easy to lock-up and to slide ... it’s one of the trickiest ones on the calendar."
Norris, who is 57 points behind Verstappen with five races remaining, was penalised five seconds for running off-track when passing him during last Sunday’s United States Grand Prix and has made it clear he is working on finding a way to beat him to take the title.
"Honestly, I'm pretty happy with third," he said. "I feel like I got to the limit of the car quite quickly, but I struggled to get more from it in the final two laps.
"Carlos (Sains) and Max did good laps, especially Carlos who has been quick all weekend.
"No one has done long runs on the tyres we will be on tomorrow so there are question marks for us all.
"Ferrari have been good in qualifying and long run pace over the last few races so it’s going to be tough.
"But I am in a good position so I am looking forward to it."
Norris added that he had been studying changes he may make to avoid becoming too easily entangled if passing Verstappen on track.
"I might be more aggressive or I might be less aggressive," he said. "It depends ... Let's see what happens."