Formula 1 News: Sainz Jr. wins pole for the 2024 Mexico City GP

Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr. turned a lap of 1m15.946s to win the pole for the 2024 Mexico City GP around the 2.674-mile Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Sainz, who is being replaced by Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari next year, once again showed the team what a mistake they are making.

“Great couple of laps!”, said Sainz. “Often around Mexico you really feel that you cannot put a lap together and it’s extremely difficult with how much sliding there is, but today my two laps in Q3 were pretty much identical and almost perfect.

“Our number one priority now is to bring both cars home but if you win the race, those seven or eight extra points that you get is important for the team in the Constructors’ Championship. I’ll be looking forward to keeping that P1 into Turn 1 and from there hopefully our race pace should be good enough to win it.”

Sainz Jr. finished 0.225s faster than Max Verstappen’s Red Bull who turned a good lap under pressure because on his first Q3 run he had his time deleted for track limits and had no banker lap, so he could not drive it to the very limit.

“”Yesterday I barely did any laps so we are playing catch up and FP3 wasn’t good,” said Verstappen.

“I was already under a lot of pressure and then my lap time got taken away so added more pressure. but I really didn’t expect the front row. It’s one of the hardest tracks to get right.”

Lando Norris, who was fastest in Q1 and Q2 cocked in Q3 and could not put the time up when it really counted. He finished 0314s behind Sainz Jr. in third.

“I’m pretty happy with third, I couldn’t get a lot more out of it in the last two laps. Carlos has looked quick all weekend.”

The #16 Ferrari of Charles Leclerc will start 4th, 0.319s behind Sainz Jr.

The Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were 5th and 6th, 0.410s and 0.705s behind Sainz Jr.

Kevin Magnussen was 6th for Haas ahead of Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg to round out the top-10.

Q2 ended a minute early when Yuki Tsunoda stuffed it into the barriers in his VCARB. He paid the price because his Red Flag caused he and his VCARB teammate to be out in Q2.

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were both starting their final flying laps before the session was stopped and were subsequently eliminated, while Valtteri Bottas was also denied the chance to break out of Q2 in the wake of the incident.

Washed up Sergio Perez disappointed the Mexican fans by getting knocked out in Q1. Why Red Bull keeps him is beyond us.  Red Bull will lose this year’s Constructor’s Championship because of the poor performance by Perez all year long.

Oscar Piastri was also knocked out in Q1 after bouncing over the curbs hard, which may have damaged the underside of the car. It is the first time this season that Piastri failed to make it out of Q1. In fact he made Q3 in all the races so far this year.

2024 Mexico City GP Qualifying Results