Sainz on Mexico City pole, but Norris 'happy' with third

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz beat title rivals Max Verstappen and Lando Norris to pole position at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Sainz, who took his first pole position since the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix, was fast enough on both his runs in final qualifying to take pole.

The Spaniard ended up 0.225 seconds quicker than Verstappen, with Norris just 0.089secs further back.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took fourth ahead of the Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

Norris starts the race 57 points behind Verstappen with 146 points still available over the remaining five races.

Third on the face of it is not ideal for a driver who needs to gain an average of nearly 12 points a race over the rest of the season to win the title.

But Mexico has one of the the longest runs to the first corner of any circuit in F1 and sometimes starting behind can be an advantage because of the powerful slipstream effect.

The winner in Mexico has come from third on the grid in three of the last four races.

Norris said: “I am pretty happy with third, honestly. I feel like I got to the limit of the car quite quickly, which made us look quite good but I struggled to get any more out of it.

“None of us have done proper long runs on the tyres we're going to be on tomorrow but Ferrari have been very quick in qualifying and on the long runs recently so it’s going to be tough.”

Both Norris and Verstappen faced more pressure than normal going into the final laps because neither had a good lap time on the board.

Verstappen’s first lap was deleted for exceeding track limits and Norris’ was just slow.

Verstappen, who lost nearly all of Friday with an engine problem, said: “Yesterday I did basically no laps, so I was already under a lot of pressure and then that added a little more pressure.

“I’m very happy to be on the front row, I didn’t think that would be possible.”

Sainz said: “Great couple of laps. A lot of times around Mexico you always have the feeling like you cannot put a lap together and it is extremely difficult with how much sliding there is. But my two laps were almost identical, almost perfect.

“Since Austin, we have done especially on my side a step up, also in qualifying trying to find something different with the out-lap and the tyre preparation. Looking forward to finishing the job tomorrow but I will take pole position. Very happy.”

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