There was beautiful sunshine over the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez ahead of the qualifying session for the 2022 Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix, but we were warned there was a 60 per cent chance of rain during this session. There was a big cloud lurking nearby, which could have shaken things up.
The green light at the end of the pit lane was out and our 18-minute Q1 was therefore under way. Ferrari junior Mick Schumacher and his Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen were out on track immediately.
Charles Leclerc went almost a full second faster than Sergio Perez to top the timesheet in the early stages, but soon Max Verstappen went almost three tenths faster than the Monegasque driver with a 1:19.222. Lewis Hamilton was directly behind the Dutchman on track and was quicker after the first two sectors, but fell away badly in the final part of the lap to slot in behind the Ferrari driver in third. Mick Schumacher did a brilliant lap to climb to sixth, but immediately had the time deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 2. What a shame for him!
Meanwhile, Sergio Perez improved to sixth, but nobody was quite safe yet with the track clearly improving all the time. Lewis Hamilton was coming back out for another run, with only Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc (first and second) staying in the pits. Sebastian Vettel improved on his last lap but can only go 16th, and Zhou Guanyu then knocked him down another place for good measure. Mick Schumacher (Haas), Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Alex Albon (Williams) and Nicholas Latifi (Williams) were eliminated in Q1.
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After almost three minutes from the start of Q2, we finally had some cars on the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez track! Lewis Hamilton edged his Mercedes team-mate George Russell by just 0.013s on their first flying laps in this second phase of qualifying. Max Verstappen, who unlike the Mercedes cars was on used soft tyres, was almost 0.4s behind Hamilton. And the world champion was relegated to fourth as Valtteri Bottas gets himself up to third again!
At the moment, it looked as though Scuderia Ferrari weren’t in the battle for pole today. Charles Leclerc was only sixth, behind Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, while Carlos Sainz was eighth, behind McLaren’s Lando Norris. Sergio Perez continued to struggle, and was down in 12th for Red Bull at his home Grand Prix. The Mexican headed out before the rest of the field, and moved up to third – behind the Mercedes cars – with a solid lap. Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren, Zhou Guanyu, Alfa Romeo, Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri, Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri and Kevin Magnussen, Haas, were out in Q2.
Max Verstappen absolutely nailed his first lap in Q3 with a 1:17.947 – by far and away the quickest time we have seen this weekend! Mercedes were his closest challengers but they just could’t match that time, with George Russell a tenth off and Lewis Hamilton a few hundredths further back. But Hamilton has had his time deleted! He cut across Turn 3 and that track limits infringement wiped his time off the board.
Not great laps at all from Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari F1-75 cars, who were only fourth and sixth and someway off the pace. Valtteri Bottas split them after the first runs. Sergio Perez was third for Red Bull thanks to Hamilton dropping down to 10th with his lost time.
The drivers are now heading out for those crucial final laps. Not many drivers managed to improve on their final laps but Max Verstappen did it – dropping down to a 1:17.775!
That means he took pole in the end by three tenths from George Russell, while Lewis Hamilton’s lap was good enough for third – just 0.005s off his team-mate. Disappointing pace from Scuderia Ferrari, with Carlos Sainz in fifth place and Charles Leclerc just seventh, having also suffered from sone power unit issues based on his team radio messages.
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