By Mark Gero
Lando Norris proved Saturday afternoon at the Hermanos Rodriguez Circuit that the Briton can still be in contention for the world championship by setting the fastest time in qualifying for the Mexico City Grand Prix ahead of the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.
For the other two contenders for the title, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen could only manage fifth, while series leader Oscar Piastri continued his downward slide in the second McLaren by only finishing eighth.
For Norris, it is the first time that he has achieved pole since Belgium back in July.
“I’m happy to be back on pole, it’s actually been quite a long time, so it’s a good feeling.” He said.
“It was one of those laps where you don’t really know what happened, it felt decent but when I crossed the line I was very pleasantly surprised.
I’ve been feeling good all weekend, especially from today, I got a little bit nervous of the Ferrari at the end of Q3, but I pulled it out when it mattered. I’m happy because of that.”
Norris set his fastest time with only a few minutes to go in the final session, as it looked like Leclerc would surprise everybody. But the car was not working well for the Ferrari driver, despite his place on the front row. But the McLaren driver responded with a better time and ruined the Monegasque’s day.
“It is very difficult this qualifying.” Commented Leclerc. “It’s very difficult because there is very little grip, so the car is sliding a lot.
It is very tricky, but pretty happy with the job we have done. I don’t think there was much left in the car. Very happy with today’s performance.
It will mean a lot, so we will do everything to get the first place into the first corner and then see what is possible.”
For Hamilton, it was the first time that the seven -time world champion placed in this position, having only the sprint win in Shanghai being the only positive result this season.
“I’m really really happy,” Hamilton stated. “I’m honoured to be up here with Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc.
These guys have been so quick all year and it’s an amazing feeling. This is the first time we’ve both been up in the top three in qualifying this year.
The team truly deserve it, so we are just working as hard as we can and I’m super grateful to everyone in this team for continuing to push and not give up.
We’ve not really moved the car forward necessarily in development, but we’ve extracted more and our processes are better this weekend, and that is what you’re seeing.”
In an incident free session, George Russell and Kimi Antonelli placed both Mercedes in fourth and sixth, while the Williams of Carlos Sainz, despite a four-grid penalty on race day, took seventh. Isack Hadjar, who had the quickest time in session one, ended up in ninth in his Racing Bulls, while the Haas of Oliver Bearman, his fourth appearance in the final session in a row, finished tenth.
Starting time for Sunday’s race is 1400 hours local time at the circuit.
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