---
title: "Mexico produces most competitive qualifying session of year"
canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2016/10/30/mexico-produces-competitive-qualifying-session-year/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Cameron Paterson"
section: "F1 News"
published: "2016-10-30T13:00:52Z"
modified: "2016-10-30T13:00:52Z"
---

# Mexico produces most competitive qualifying session of year

Many stories emerged during qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix to keep fans on the edge of their seats, almost falling off as the chequered flag waved.

It was arguably, one of, if not, the best qualifying session of the season so far. Some drivers were eliminated from qualifying and became shocks, such as the two Haas cars of Esteban Gutierrez and Romain Grosjean being out in Q1, while others shone above what they would have been predicted to do, with Pascal Wehrlein getting out of Q1 for the fourth time in 2016 for Manor.

There have been other moments of surprise during the season, such as the elimination qualifying system, Daniel Ricciardo’s maiden pole for Red Bull in Monaco and wet qualifying in Austria, but this session was the most competitive in dry conditions.

Throughout the session, nobody knew whether it would be a Mercedes, Red Bull or Ferrari on top of the timesheets before Lewis Hamilton took his 59th career pole position.

The track appeared to be giving slower times in Q1 with the Red Bulls and Ferraris pushing Mercedes down the order in the earlier sessions. Hamilton led Q1 ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen with Nico Rosberg only in sixth place. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen then led Q2 on supersoft tyres ahead of Hamilton and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel on softs, with Rosberg fifth.

![Lars Baron/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2016/10/619041548.jpg)

The final shock came in Q3 as Raikkonen and Vettel were both outqualified by Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, arguably the star of qualifying in fifth place.

Rosberg was consistently slower than Hamilton and almost outside of the front row in Q3 until his last lap propelled him to second. It has been rare to see such Silver Arrows domination level out against their rivals.

However, he did qualify inside the top two for the 25th consecutive race since both Mercedes’ pace went missing in Singapore for one race only last year.

![Clive Mason/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2016/10/619041090.jpg)

This beats Ayrton Senna’s total of 24 front row qualifying performances between the 1988 German and 1989 Australian Grands Prix, however, it will not be properly recognised as a record of starting in the top two as Rosberg started from seventh in Austria earlier in the season due to a gearbox penalty. It is just a record in terms of pure qualifying position.

This was Mercedes’ 18th pole of the season from 19 races, which equals the all-time record for the number of poles in one season currently held by Red Bull (2011) and Mercedes (2014, 2015). Another pole in either Brazil or Abu Dhabi will break the record.

![Lars Baron/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2016/10/619034810.jpg)

It is also Hamilton’s 10th pole of the season and puts him extremely close to winning the pole trophy for the second successive year. He cannot yet win this award as Rosberg is on eight and could claim the final two poles of the season. If both drivers finish on ten, Rosberg would win on countback as he has a much better record of claiming second places.

Either driver to win this award would become the first to win it on two occasions since its introduction in the 2014 season.

The qualifying session sets up a superb strategic question between drivers. A mouth-watering equation will be on show at the start of the race – the Mercedes are on soft, while the Red Bulls are on supersofts. Daniel Ricciardo already tried this strategy in Austin last weekend, where he managed to jump Rosberg at the start for second.

Both Ferraris are also starting on softs and will surely be wary of losing places to fast cars around them on supersofts, such as the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz.

However, the biggest question that fans will surely be considering as the five red lights go out on the grid will be: could Red Bull actually be leading the Mexican Grand Prix come lap one?

With Mercedes’ history of starts and if Red Bull have any early grip advantage from the softer rubber, the scenario is not too farfetched.