Mexican Grand Prix qualifying: Norris takes first place as rivals battle for the title

Lando Norris gave his championship chances a big boost on Saturday by claiming pole position at the Mexican Grand Prix while title rivals Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri qualified fifth and seventh respectively.

Norris is 14 points behind Piastri in the standings But he will be ahead of his McLaren teammate if both cars finish where they started in Sunday’s race.

Norris’ lap, which was 0.262 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari in second, also helped counter the momentum of Verstappen, who has finished ahead of McLaren in the past four races and 40 points clear of Piastri.

No driver has won in Mexico after qualifying outside the top three since Alain Prost (13) in 1990.

Reacting to his pole position on McLaren radio, Norris said: “What a lap, what a lap! I don’t even know how I did it. … The less I know, the better.”

When asked about his role in his post-qualifying interview, Norris said he didn’t expect him to be as dominant as he was.

“[It was] One of those laps where you don’t really know what happened, it was decent but then when you crossed the line and saw 15.5 [milliseconds]I was very pleasantly surprised,” Norris said.

A frustrated Piastri admitted he was not sure why he struggled to find pace this weekend.

“[The car] It feels okay, just a bit of a vague pace – it’s been more or less the same gap all weekend. “We’ll take a look at where I went wrong at the time and I would say it’s a bit disappointing,” the Australian told Sky Sports.

Norris’ first task will be to fend off the two Ferraris of Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, who qualified second and third, on the long run until Turn 1.

Hamilton’s qualifying performance was his best since joining Ferrari, and he was just 0.090 seconds behind teammate Leclerc.

“These guys have been so fast all year, which is a great feeling,” Hamilton said. “This is the first time we’ve been in the top three in the playoffs this year and the team really deserves it, so we’re working as hard as we can and I’m very grateful to everyone on this team for continuing to push and not giving up.

“Keeping in mind we didn’t necessarily push the car forward in the development process, but we extracted more, and our processes are better this weekend, and that’s what you can see.”

His Ferrari teammate Leclerc said: “These qualifying are very difficult. They are very difficult because there is very little grip, so the car slides a lot. It is very difficult, but I am very happy with the work we did. I don’t think there is much left in the car.”

George Russell qualified for Mercedes in fourth and will start ahead of Verstappen in fifth and Kimi Antonelli in sixth.

Carlos Sainz qualified seventh but will drop to 12th after a five-place drop penalty was imposed for his collision with Antonelli during last weekend’s US Grand Prix.

The penalty means Piastri moved up one place in the standings following his qualifying result and will start from seventh place ahead of Racing Bull, driven by Isaac Hajjar.

Haas driver Oliver Biermann has secured his third appearance in Q3 and will start ninth once Sainz’s penalty is taken into account.

Under pressure, Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda qualified tenth thanks to a penalty taken by Sainz, but was 0.012 seconds behind third. Red Bull is expected to decide Tsunoda’s future after this weekend’s race, and qualifying behind Hager – the driver expected to replace him next year – will only weaken his case to remain at the team.

Esteban Ocon qualified 11th and will start ahead of Sainz on the grid. The Sauber team, led by Nico Hulkenberg, finished 13th on the grid, ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso in 14th and Racing Bull’s Liam Lawson in 15th.

Gabriel Bortoletto will start from 16th position after qualifying his Sauber 0.121 seconds behind second place in Q2. Alex Albon failed to exit Q1 qualifying for his fourth consecutive Grand Prix after complaining of brake problems during his return to the pits.

Pierre Gasly will start 18th for Alpine, ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll in 19th and second from Alpine’s Franco Colapinto in last.