The 20th edition of the Mexican Grand Prix qualifying session got underway. High expectations for Red Bull after they showed great pace in the practice sessions and a challenge to Mercedes and Ferrari making this a more exciting qualifying.
Q1 – Red Bull gives you wings, and gets you top of Q1.
The First part of qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix went pretty much problem free.
Only one spin during the whole session, as Haas F1’s Romain Grosjean lost control of his car due to a lack of grip from the rear tyres. Luckily for the Frenchman, no damage was sustained to the car and he was able to continue the session.
Red Bull topped the table showing their blistering pace on the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez once again, hoping for that to continue heading into Q2 and Q3.
Crowd favourite Sergio Perez managed to make it through to Q2, giving his home fans something more to cheer for.
Eliminated drivers after Q1 are:
- Stroll – +2.116
- Magnussen – +2.487
- Grosjean – +2.650
- Russell – +2.874
- Kubica – +4.230
Q2 – Mercedes top the charts whilst Red Bull and Ferrari play the strategy game.
Hamilton and Bottas restored Mercedes on top at the end of Qualifying 2. What was a battle of strategies and different tyre compounds saw the top end of the table mixing up a bit.
McLaren had another good qualifying session getting both drivers though to Q3, gaining another advantage over their rivals Renault in the tight battle for 4th in the Constructors Championship.
Sergio Perez finished in a strong 11th place, considering the pace of Racing Point this weekend. This put him in a good strategic point for tomorrow’s race, giving him the right of a starting tyre choice.
No big surprises from the rest of the field, with the usual suspects making it through. Drivers that didn’t make it through include:
- Perez – +0.966
- Hulkenberg – +1.164
- Ricciardo – +1.212
- Raikkonen – +1.246
- Giovinazzi – +1.548
Q3 – Max Verstappen takes pole for Red Bull as Valtteri Bottas is left into the barriers.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beats Charles Leclerc to take his second pole of the season after he was last on pole in Hungary.
Ferrari finish in 2nd and 3rd with Leclerc and Vettel respectively. They will be a bit disappointed however as both drivers made mistakes in their final quick laps therefore we couldn’t find out if they had the chance to beat the Dutchman’s time.
Difficult session for Constructor Champions Mercedes as well as lack of pace puts Hamilton into 4th whereas his team-mate and main Championship rival Valtteri Bottas crashed into the barriers in the penultimate corner after a heavy shunt.
The Top 10 line up like this:
- Verstappen – 1:14.758
- Leclerc – +0.266
- Vettel – +0.412
- Hamilton – +0.504
- Albon – +0.578
- Bottas – +0.580
- Sainz – +1.256
- Norris – +1.564
- Kvyat – +1.711
- Gasly – +1.828
(Image by Steve, under Creative Commons License)
