Lewis Hamilton will start on pole position for the Mexican Grand Prix at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
The Mercedes driver stormed to pole position beating his teammate in a close run affair. Sebastian Vettel will line up third ahead of Daniil Kvyat, Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas.
Qualifying 1
Before the first part of qualifying, McLaren announced Jenson Button would not be participating in qualifying due to an engine problem which occurred in final practice which McLaren were unable to fix in time for qualifying. Button will be hit with a 50-place grid penalty.
The Mercedes duo of Rosberg and Hamilton led the way for much of Q1 on the medium tyres. The majority of the teams opted to run for the harder, medium compound, but the Red Bull and Ferrari pairings went straight on the option tyre. Vettel displaced Rosberg at the top of the timesheets. Rosberg soon returned to the top of the standings after switching to the soft tyres.
Further down the field, it looked to be a battle between Alonso, the Sauber’s and Lotuses to decide who would be dropping out of Q1. Unfortunately for Felipe Nasr, he made a mistake in the final sector meaning he would not make it into Q2. Fernando Alonso, Alexander Rossi, Will Stevens and Jenson Button also failed to make it out of Q2.
Qualifying 2
The story of the second part of qualifying was who was able to work the option tyres. Once again, the Mercedes duo looked to be the team to beat. Hamilton led the way after the first runs ahead of Rosberg, Kvyat, Ricciardo and Bottas. Vettel opted to set his only lap later in the session. Teammate Kimi Raikkonen spun at turn one while running on the prime tyre due to a brake issue – this forced to end is qualifying session.
With minutes remaining, Williams’ Felipe Massa and Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen were under pressure as the rain began to fall. This pushed Carlos Sainz out of Q2 along with Romain Grosjean, Pastor Maldonado, Marcus Ericsson and Kimi Raikkonen – who has a five-place grid penalty due to a gearbox change.
Qualifying 3
The battle for pole position looked set to be between the Mercedes duo and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. With the threat of rain, every team sent their cars out early on in the session, just in case it was to rain.
Teams used their first flying lap to warm up the tyres and the second to set their fast lap.
Hamilton led the way on the initial laps ahead of Rosberg, Vettel and Kvyat. The two Force India’s completed only one run at the end of the session.
Daniel Ricciardo improved to fifth, behind teammate Kvyat while Verstappen went eighth as the leaders completed their quick laps.
No one improved on their final laps meaning Rosberg would take pole position ahead of Hamilton, Vettel, Kvyat, Ricciardo, Bottas, Massa, Verstappen, Perez and Hulkenberg.
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