The Saturday in F1 Mexico GP went up and down throughout qualifying where McLaren looked likely to take pole position until the last gasp from Ferrari to take it.
It was a bit smoother on Saturday in F1 Mexico GP without any crash dramas, but the fight was intense and close. The first shocker came at the expense of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who were both knocked out in Q1 itself amid track limits and track evolution.
Piastri had his quick lap deleted and his tyres were too hot on his final attempt, while Perez had issues with braking and just couldn’t get a lap together. Their teammates though made it in Q3 and Max Verstappen managed to beat Lando Norris, even though he had his quick lap deleted.
It was crucial for the Dutchman and showed pace when it mattered especially in his fight against Norris. The Brit dropped in pace which allowed Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz to capitalise on his good run in the weekend so far. He showed good pace all-through and overcome a slight drop in Q1 and Q2.
Teammate Charles Leclerc was okay with fourth but was disappointed after low grip situation. The Mercedes pair of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton ended up in the Top 6 but weren’t overly happy with the car, especially after how they fared in the practice sessions.
Sainz: “Very sweet because, you know, it’s not normal to have such two strong laps around Mexico and there’s a lot of sliding in the lap, very difficult to put a lap together, and actually my two laps of Q3 were almost both perfect. Yeah, very happy to be on pole and to confirm the good form from Austin. Austin already that last lap of Q3 was coming good. So I had high hopes coming into Mexico and yeah, we’ve managed to keep it up. There were two really good laps and the fact that the first lap was so good and so much clearer of the field allowed me to take even further risks in Q3. I added a bit of front wing just because I had nothing to lose and see if by adding a bit more front end to the car I would go even quicker. But yeah, that’s what happens when the first lap is so good. Also, the first lap of Q3, I didn’t take many risks with the Turn 2 kerb, trying to stay away from track limits. While in the second lap, I knew that the first might be enough for pole, and I just tried to maximise the track limits there.
“And it gave me, for free, a tenth that I kept for the rest of the lap. So yeah, two very good laps, especially when you see the two or three guys I have behind me, with Lando, Max, and Charles, obviously, to be two, three tenths clear must be some very solid laps. The different line, it’s just a Lando thing that he normally likes to do. I think it’s from iRacing or something. He likes doing short distance to the line. And I said, well, I lose nothing by, maybe if it’s faster, maybe cutting a bit the distance. Maybe it gives me a thousand or two thousandths of a second that I’m going to make sure this time I don’t leave them out there. And yeah, I remember from our McLaren days he used to do it a lot and I was a bit puzzled. But yeah, tyre preparation has been a hot topic in Ferrari the last few races because we feel like in the race we’re always very strong, but we seem to lack something come qualifying. Yeah, this year’s car is very good on tyres, but I think that sometimes it means that in quali you cannot maybe extract the maximum out of the tyres in the first timed lap on the Soft tyres.
“And yeah, I put a bit of focus on that during the break, the three-week break. came into Austin and Mexico with a couple of things that seemed to pay off. Honestly, the start I will just do everything I can to stay in P1 because also around Mexico that’s really important for the cooling of the car, for the tyres and everything. So I’ll do everything I can. But I say my focus is on the 0 to 100 and on the launch. Then everything else happening from then onwards… It depends, also, on how good my rivals start and all the instinctive decisions that we all take in the start. I’ll trust my instincts and obviously with the intention of getting out of that corner P1 for sure.”
Verstappen: “I mean, yesterday I did, like, four laps, two laps on lower fuel and two laps on high fuel. So it was basically just a complete write-off, no information. So, yeah, for me, FP3 was very crucial. Tried to do as many laps as I could and, yeah, we were behind. I mean, the car was not feeling great and everything was just very difficult. So I knew that it was going to be a tough qualifying, but we made some final adjustments. It all started to feel better, but to be on the front row, it’s an incredible result for us. I don’t expect miracles. I think in Austin, yeah, Ferrari was really, really fast. Of course, maybe that week McLaren was not as strong, but then in the race, I think they were still competitive. So from my side, yeah, I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow. It just depends on your start and then what happens in front of you. I mean, I think I’ve been in a lot of starting positions around here. And yeah, it’s a long run. Anything can happen, but I don’t really think about it too much.”
Norris: “Not good enough, clearly. Honestly, I’m, let’s say, relatively happyish still to be P3. Not a great day, yes. I mean, I missed obviously FP1 and then with the alternate tyres, so I felt like a bit on the back foot, probably not as much as what Max was, but not been that comfortable at all. And found some good steps into qualifying. And obviously Q1 and Q2 were very good. But I mean, I found the limit very quickly. And I was happy to find the limit. And things were good. But just couldn’t progress from there. The car was too difficult to drive in Q3. Too difficult to get especially three tenths out of it comparing to Carlos. So happy with third. For a minute, it looked like it could have been better. But I think we finished where we should be. I was at the limit. I couldn’t go any quicker. It’s more I think the others just didn’t get the most out of it. Yeah, pretty much every corner I was close to locking up and making mistakes. And I did that in my Q3, run 1 lap.
“But I had definitely nowhere near close to three tenths left in the car. So it was more that they just went quicker. I was at the limit. I got everything out of the car already in Q1 and Q2. Made us look like the ones to beat. But honestly, since FP1, Ferrari have been the guys to beat. And Carlos is on top today. So challenging to beat them tomorrow. I mean, the race pace is always a tough one to know. The last few weekends, they’ve been extremely quick and quicker than us, so it’s… I don’t have the confidence to say, yes, we can just beat them on pace. Like today, not on their level. But tomorrow’s another day. You know, if we can have a good start, hopefully it’s exciting down to turn one. Yeah, Carlos is going to be fast. Like he said, he’s got nothing to lose. And they’ve been fastest for the last few weekends. So we’ll try our best. But I don’t think we have the pace comparing to them at the minute.”
Leclerc: “[I’m] disappointed, but not surprised.I was struggling and not feeling well since FP2 with the car and yeah, that’s the way it is. In Q3 the lap was coming very, very nicely until Turn 10 where I lost the car, but I had to take those risks just because I didn’t have the pace. So yeah, it’s the way it is. I think P4 is not that bad, but of course disappointed. [I’m missing] grip and feeling. Sometimes you like the balance; today I don’t, yesterday I didn’t either. I think it’s probably not one of my strengths, the qualifying in very low-grip tracks. I tend to push quite a lot in qualifying, in Monza and here I always struggle quite a lot with that. However, it’s the way it is. The only thing that gives me some optimism is that I think I was the fastest guy yesterday in race simulations, which is a good thing, starting from fourth and making my life more difficult.
“I’ve got to think a lot more in order to finish a lap and try to contain a bit more my will to push extremely hard in those qualifyings, because it just doesn’t work out on those on those tracks. Today I tried to do that, it was working pretty fine in Q3, however I lost the car in Turn 10, and from that moment, it was very difficult to finish my lap. You slide a lot just because there’s very low grip. So you’ve just got to be a little bit less on the limit on these tracks and I struggle a bit more to do that. However, for the race pace it doesn’t seem to be an issue. I don’t think it will be an issue tomorrow, but in quali it’s a bit trickier. McLaren has gained a lot of pace compared to [Friday].
“Max obviously didn’t run a lot yesterday, so it’s difficult to compare with Max. Actually, we don’t know about Max’s race pace, so we are quite confident that our car could have a good pace tomorrow. However, I think it’s a different scenario compared to Austin where it’s very easy to overtake. Here in Mexico, there’s a lot of overheating for the engines, for everything. Whenever you are P4 then you’ve got to manage all these things and it makes it a lot more difficult to come back. But we’ll try our best and if we do a good start like last week then everything is possible.”
Hamilton: “P3 felt decent. It felt like we were on the right track. I decided not to make any changes. All we did was put the wing on and I was like ‘okay, let’s leave it there’. There was not a lot we could do in set-up changes to progress the car forwards. The performance is where it is. Then we got into qualifying and I had no rear. It was like it flipped on its head. It’s a very strange thing with the car. It will be interesting to get a reading because I’m obviously on the upgraded car, which should be quicker. But I don’t think it is. We definitely took a good step in FP3 I thought, at least in balance.
“But the actual car we were still six-tenths off the cars ahead. We put the bigger wing on to try and get more downforce and just went slower. We have three-wheeling and the ride height is moving 15mm up and down and when it does that, it sh**s the bed, basically. We will get a lot of data in the race. I don’t think we can compete with the guys ahead. They are just too far. So just see how it goes. I just want to get to the end of the race this time, at least.”
Piastri: “I just had very, very little grip on that second lap, which was a shame. But I shouldn’t even have needed it so obviously frustrating because the pace looks very strong and I felt comfortable. Just tried a bit too much in Turn 12 and it bit me hard. I lost pretty much a second, so I should have been comfortably in. I just went off, FP3 was very strong, in FP1, I struggled a bit but FP2, I think we made some really good changes and I was comfortable. FP3 very comfortable as well, and even qualifying, I felt good, just a very silly mistake trying a bit too hard in Q1 so that was it.
“At least I know where it all went wrong but it still is painful stood here. We’ll try and get back into the points and strongly into the points hopefully. We’re trying to draw inspiration from Lando’s race last year and see what we can do. I think it’s going to be tough because the field looks reasonably tight but I think we’ve got some pace on board this weekend, so try and use it to get through.”
Perez: “I’ve been struggling quite a bit with braking. Every time I try attack the braking, I just put too much energy through the tyres and that makes it very tricky for me to stop the car. It’s been there for the last three races where I cannot stop the car. I’m having to modulate my braking quite a lot and that’s something we can see in the data, but we are not able to fix it at the moment. It’s mainly on the straight line I cannot stop the car. I just slide too much and given that it’s all surface sensitivity here, it makes it a lot harder. It’s going to be hard because it’s also present there in the long run, so I will try everything.
“I will try and see what we are able to do with the team and see what solutions we are able to find. It’s obviously very disappointing. If there’s a grand prix that I want to do really well, it’s this one. Unfortunately, this event has been really difficult and tricky. We will discuss all the options. The problem is that we are also very tight on parts that we have available. We don’t have the spec of floor that we would like to go on to. I don’t know, we will discuss it for sure with the team.”
The fall of Piastri and Perez allowed both the Haas cars to finish in the Top 10 along with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who was left surprised after a low-key start. Equally surprised was Williams’ Alexander Albon, especially after his heavy shunt in FP1 and FP2 miss due to repair work.
Kevin Magnussen felt good to be best of the rest but teammate Nico Hulkenberg struggled all-through to still end up 10th. They are in a good position especially against Visa Cash App RB pair where a shunt for Yuki Tsunoda hampered his and Liam Lawson’s chance to be in Q3.
This allowed Gasly to make it along with Albon, where their teammates Esteban Ocon and Franco Colapinto were knocked out in Q1 after set-up changes didn’t help them from FP3 to qualifying. The Q2 crash also hampered both the Aston Martin cars of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.
The Spaniard felt the car was good enough to be in the Top 10 after nice surprise from practice. The good run for Kick Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas also continued in Q2, but Zhou Guanyu’s struggles also continued after another Q1 knock out situation.
Magnussen: “It’s been a bit of a struggle for me to be honest, all weekend long. I’m not getting off on the right foot with the car and the laps aren’t coming as I’d like, and how they should. I’m struggling to find rhythm and harmony; some laps are good, some laps are not good, and in Q3 unfortunately I couldn’t find it. Kevin did a great job in P7, so two cars in the top 10 is good and we’ve got good top speed at a track where overtaking is difficult, so it’s all to play for tomorrow.”
Albon: “Q3 was a nice surprise today but I do think we could’ve been P7. I caught some dirty air from the Mercedes’ in the final sector, which could’ve put us ahead of Kevin and Pierre but we’re still in a good position for tomorrow and I’m glad I could deliver P9 for the team and the mechanics who worked really hard to repair the car. Obviously, I haven’t had the chance to do a long run, so we won’t know until we go out there, but the car feels good and the used tyres we ran on felt okay which is a good judge ahead of tomorrow. We have a lot of our direct competitors around us tomorrow and a few cars out of position but it’s not always easy to overtake around here, so we’ll try our best to move forward.”
Gasly: “It was an amazing Qualifying session for us and I’m very happy to be in Q3 for the second race in a row. We made a lot of changes between Free Practice 3 and Qualifying, as we were last on the timesheets, struggling with the car and just generally lacking grip. The team did a great job, so credit to everyone for persevering and finding those improvements. It is clear that this car, with our recent upgrades, has potential and it seems that we are operating within a small window, which we must continue to understand. We were just 0.006secs from another position today but, still, I’m pleased with our turnaround and how we were able to put together some strong laps. We’ve put ourselves in a good position on the grid for tomorrow. Last week, we had a strong Saturday but struggled on Sunday, and hopefully we have learnt from that and can be in the fight for points.”
Alonso: “We have struggled most of the weekend for performance but in Qualifying the car felt a lot better than in Free Practice and I was much happier. We opted to use three sets of tyres in Q1 and we made it through. I was doing a good lap in Q2 just before the red flag ended the session and I think we might have made it through into Q3 had we been able to finish the lap. I don’t expect any miracles tomorrow, but I am ready to fight and enjoy my 400th Grand Prix. I dreamt of becoming a Formula One driver as a child and I’m here with more than two decades in the sport so I’m extremely lucky.”
Tsunoda: “I had a front lock up initially and I lost a lot of control. So me having a front lock up was already game over and there was no way I could make the corner. So it’s been strange. I didn’t really push hard there, and throughout the week, I didn’t have any front lock up in any lap in that corner. So I got surprised about that, but nonetheless, it’s a shame not to be able to maximise this opportunity. Strategy here won’t be easy, especially in traffic and car temperature but I do as much as I can. I think the car pace is still there so hopefully I can maximise that with clean air. In the previous race my team-mate went from last to the points so anything could happen.”
Bottas: “I have mixed feelings about how the day went. The positive is that we made it to Q2: it has been a while since we had last been here, so that’s really good to see for all of us. I want to thank the whole team for all the effort to get us there, hopefully it can give a motivation boost for the final part of the season. However, I feel we could have got even more than P15: we were unlucky with the red flag in Q2 – I was on a good lap, and I was in the last sector, close to finishing, when the red flag came out. I think that lap would have put us quite close to the top 10, which is a shame. At least, we are a step ahead from the previous weekend, and we seem to have decent pace here. We’ll try our best tomorrow; it could be a very interesting race.”
Here’s how F1 Mexico GP qualifying panned out
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