Leclerc claims pole as Ferrari locks out the front row at the Mexico City Grand Prix

Ferrari secured the front row for the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday, with Charles Leclerc edging teammate Carlos Sainz by a mere 0.067 seconds.

Charles Leclerc secured his 22nd F1 pole position at the Mexico City Grand Prix, leading his teammate Carlos Sainz as Ferrari locked out the front row. Leclerc eventually found his rhythm despite having difficulty maintaining pace over the course of the weekend.

Max Verstappen finished 0.097 seconds behind the Ferrari drivers despite having a better final performance at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. The three-time world champion will also have to wait nervously to find out if he will be handed a grid penalty after being summoned by the stewards.

Ferrari picked up the speed in the final qualifying round, with Leclerc recording the fastest lap of the weekend on his first flying lap in 1m17.166s, nearly eight tenths of a second faster than his previous best lap from Q2.

Although the Monegasque couldn’t cut thousands of a second off his second best lap, it was still good enough for him to beat Carlos Sainz, who finished with a time of 1m17.233s to complete an unexpected Ferrari front row for Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix.

Daniel Ricciardo has performed exceptionally in Mexico City since making his comeback to the sport just a week ago. He secured a fantastic fourth place finish in his AlphaTauri, finishing just 0.216 seconds behind Leclerc’s record.

On home turf, local hero Perez qualified fifth, four hundredths of a second ahead of Lewis Hamilton who finished sixth.

McLaren’s day was made worse by Lando Norris’s inability to get past the first qualifying round. However, his teammate Oscar Piastri made it to the third round but finished only seventh.

George Russell qualified in eighth, having finished the session in third place in Q2, but he was unable to perform well in the crucial final stages of qualifying. Actually, the Mercedes driver was unable to match his best time from Q2, missing it by a mere tenth of a second.

Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top-10 order in Mexico City, confirming the speeds they had demonstrated during practice.

Alpine has performed quietly so far this weekend in Mexico City, as Pierre Gasly was unable to advance past the third round following his teammate’s early exit. Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg qualified in 12th place ahead of Fernando Alonso, who has endured a challenging weekend so far in his Aston Martin.

Alex Albon was devastated after he got his time deleted due to track limits. He had looked great in practice and appeared to be advancing to Q3.

Yuki Tsunoda failed to record a lap time and gave his teammate Daniel Riccirado a tow. After exceeding his power unit allowance, the Japanese driver was destined to start the race from the rear of the grid on Sunday.

The second qualifying round saw Yuki Tsunoda, Nico Hulkenberg, Pierre Gasly, and Fernando Alonso eliminated.

Lando Norris and McLaren suffered a shock early in qualifying when he made a mistake around the mid section of the track on his second run after he was unable to post a decent lap time on his first run. If Fernando Alonso had not spun ahead of him, he would have had time for one last flying lap.

Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Ocon narrowly missed qualifying’s second stage, after missing thousands of a second that would have allowed them to advance. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was eliminated for the sixth time in a row during the first round of qualifying following Friday’s issues.

After a promising final practice earlier on Saturday, Logan Sargeant had both of his times deleted for going beyond the track limits and as a result he finished the session without recording a lap time.

2023 F1 MEXICO CITY GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING RESULTS