Sebastian Vettel grabbed pole position for the Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix, narrowly edging Red Bull’s Max Verstappen into second place.
The Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas were forced to settle for third and fourth on a tricky day for Mercedes.
Vettel’s 50th career pole was snatched late in the day. Verstappen seemed the likely candidate to claim a maiden pole position after a stunning Q2 effort, where he lowered the benchmark to a 1m16.524s.
Verstappen then posted a 1m16.574s on the opening run in Q3 to reassert his provisional pole. However, he was unable to improve on his second attempt.
This opened the door for Vettel. The German eclipsed Verstappen with a 1m16.488s on his final effort to grab pole.
Despite having secured the previous three pole positions, Hamilton was unable to match the pace of the leading duo. He ended the day third, half a second adrift of first.
Team-mate Bottas was disappointed to qualify fourth after his first attempt in Q3 was aborted due to a mistake in the third sector. Bottas believed that his lock-up at Turn 13 was a direct result of being impeded by Verstappen. The stewards are investigating the incident.
Kimi Raikkonen qualified fifth ahead of Force India’s Esteban Ocon. Despite his team-mate’s tilt at pole position, Daniel Ricciardo struggled to seventh. He was left ‘confused’ by grip issues which hampered his progress.
Nico Hulkenberg managed to out-qualify his new team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr, leveling their intra-team rivalry after two qualifying sessions. They ended the day eighth and ninth. Sergio Perez qualified tenth.
McLaren elected not to run in Q2 on account of their grid penalties which will see both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne demoted to the back of the grid. Alonso did, however, post the fifth fastest time in Q1.
Haas repeated their poor qualifying performance from last season’s visit to Mexico. Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean were the two slowest cars in qualifying.
Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly failed to set a time after the team was unable to repair the car in time following his FP3 power unit dramas.
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