By Andrew Benson.
Charles Leclerc led Carlos Sainz to a surprising Ferrari one-two in qualifying for the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Their pace came out of nowhere as Leclerc pipped Sainz by 0.067 seconds while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third, 0.097secs off in third.
Daniel Ricciardo added to the unexpected feel of the grid with a superb fourth place for Alpha Tauri.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were sixth and eight for Mercedes.
Home hero Sergio Perez could manage only fifth in the second Red Bull, 0.160secs behind team-mate Verstappen, while the surprise of qualifying was Lando Norris’ McLaren down in 19th place.
The Briton failed to put a single lap together in a messy first session and paid the price, while team-mate Oscar Piastri was seventh in the sister car.
Alfa Romeo drivers Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu completed the top 10.
But the order could change significantly after a series of stewards’ investigations because of incidents through the whole session. Verstappen, Hamilton and Russell are among the drivers involved in the inquiries.
Ferrari had looked to be struggling through the practice sessions but an impressive run in the first session of qualifying, when Leclerc lapped within 0.4secs of Verstappen’s fastest lap despite using medium tyres while the Red Bull was on the softs hinted at their potential.
Despite that, Leclerc was only sixth fastest in the second session, but he had saved the best for the last session.
The Ferrari drivers went out after the Red Bulls for the first laps and first Sainz beat Verstappen’s initial time and then Leclerc pipped his team-mate.
It was all set up for a dramatic climax, but none of the top three could improve their times on their final run and Leclerc’s fourth grand prix pole of the season and his second in a row was in the bag.
Leclerc said: “We did not expect to be on pole. We were struggling in final practice again but for some reason when we put the new tyres on everything came together.
“But I am not even thinking about pole. I am already thinking about the race. We have had enough poles and we need to do better in the races.”
He also referenced one of the quirks of Mexico – that the long run from the start to the first corner at more than 800m can often make the cars on the front row vulnerable to being passed with the slipstream.
“First place here, I’m not sure it is the best starting place but I will take pole position,” Leclerc said.