Leclerc took an surprising pole forward of favourites Sainz and Verstappen. (Credit: AFP)
The Monegasque clocked a finest lap in a single minute and 17.166 seconds to beat the Spaniard by 0.067 seconds, leaving newly-topped three-time world champion Verstappen third for Red Bull.
A shocked Charles Leclerc admitted he didn’t count on his success on Saturday after he secured pole place forward of crew-mate Carlos Sainz as Ferrari locked out the entrance row for Sunday’s Mexico Grand Prix.
In a chaotic and complicated qualifying session that appeared set to see Max Verstappen on pole once more, Ferrari emerged in Q3 with a surge of tempo that shocked nearly everybody.
The Monegasque clocked a finest lap in a single minute and 17.166 seconds to beat the Spaniard by 0.067 seconds, leaving newly-topped three-time world champion Verstappen third for Red Bull.
“It’s two weekends in a row where we say that we don’t know if we have the pace,” mentioned Leclerc. “People will start not believing us anymore! To be honest, I did not expect to be on pole today — I thought we were lucky after FP3.
“But once we put everything together it all went well. The new tyres gained a lot, but I am already focusing on tomorrow’s race. We may have pole position, but now we need to convert it into a win and obviously it is going to be very difficult.”
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Sainz admitted: “It was a strange one. This whole weekend I’ve struggled to put a lap together then the first lap I put together in Q3 was P1 and suddenly Charles beat me by half a tenth, one tenth…
“I’m just struggling to understand where we can find half a second — and then we go half a second slower in the next lap. It’s very tricky with the tyres.
“The feeling with the car is very strange around this circuit, but we managed to put a good lap in when it counted,” he added.
Verstappen, who might be searching a 51st profession win in Sunday’s race, mentioned: “It’s very difficult here…. It’s very low grip around here because of the altitude so when you try and push a little bit more it goes a bit away from you.
“We’re very close and it’s a very long race with a lot of laps to be raced. Of course, I would have liked to start first, but we’ll have a good slipstream into turn one so we’ll see what happens.”
After dominating all three follow periods, it was a shock to see the 26-12 months-previous Dutchman unable to remain on high as Ferrari discovered a surge of further tempo within the remaining Q3 part of qualifying.
Daniel Ricciardo was fourth for Alpha Tauri forward of native hero Sergio Perez within the second Red Bull, seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes and Oscar Piastri of McLaren.
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Three of the highest ten — Verstappen, Hamilton and Russell — confronted stewards’ investigations for infringements throughout qualifying, Hamilton for ignoring yellow flags and Russell and Verstappen for holding up the sphere within the pitlane.
It is Leclerc’s fourth pole place success this 12 months and the twenty second of his profession, however he’s with no win this season and has struggled to transform poles to wins. His final victory was on the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix, the fifth of his profession.
(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – AFP)
