Red Bull’s Max Verstappen put himself on pole position for a Mexican Grand Prix hat-trick yesterday in a qualifying session that ended with Mercedes’s title contender Valtteri Bottas smashing heavily into the wall.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc joined the Dutch youngster on the front row with teammate Sebastian Vettel behind them on the second row for what could yet be a title-deciding race.
Lewis Hamilton, who needs to finish on the podium if he is to secure a sixth title with three races to spare today, qualified fourth for Mercedes.
“It will be a bit different starting first instead of second, so I’ll give it all and we have a good race car anyway,” said Verstappen, winner in 2017 and 2018 from second on the grid.
Verstappen’s second career pole position ended a run of five in a row for Ferrari, who came into the weekend as favourites and locked out the front row in the previous race in Japan.
Champions Mercedes have now gone six races without a pole, with Verstappen taking his first in Hungary before the August break.
Bottas, the only driver with any mathematical chance of denying Hamilton the title, will line up sixth on the grid barring any penalties he might incur for a possible gearbox change.
The Finn, 64 points behind Hamilton, lost control into the last Peraltada corner and careered along the wall at speed before slamming into the end of the energy-absorbing Tecpro barrier.
He stayed in the badly-damaged car, his breathing heavy over the team radio, before climbing out and going to the medical centre.
Mercedes, who have already secured the constructors’ crown for an unprecedented sixth year in a row, said they were assessing the damage. The accident prevented others from challenging the provisional pole time set by Verstappen on his first flying lap of the final session — even if the time of one minute 14.758 seconds already looked hard to beat.
“I had a mistake on my first run, so I was quite confident on the second run that I could make up for it but it was a double yellow (warning flag) so I had to slow down,” said Vettel, who was on pole in Japan.
“We need a good start then take it from there — it’s a long race, it will be a tough one on brakes and cooling in general and tyres. All top six cars opt to start on medium tyres so we see who dares to go the longest.”
Verstappen’s British-born Thai teammate Alexander Albon qualified fifth.
McLaren’s Carlos Sainz had another good Saturday, taking seventh ahead of teenage teammate Lando Norris in eighth with the two Toro Rossos of Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly completing the top 10.
Mexican Sergio Perez qualified 11th for Racing Point.
Red Bull’s Dutch driver Max Verstappen powers his car during the qualifying session of the Mexican Grand Prix at the Hermanos Rodriguez circuit in Mexico City yesterday. (AFP)
