Mexico GP Qualifying Report

There were only two talking points going into the weekend: would Perez be asked to move over to let Verstappen through at his home race and which engine will the altitude effect the most?  It seemed that the Honda would be slightly superior.  And would Perez be ahead of Verstappen at any point anyway?

Stroll, who was destined for tor the back of the grid anyway, brought out the red flag half way through the first Qualifying session.  Times have changed for the broadcasters, who didn't show a replay of the accident until Stroll was out of the car and clearly well.

For some reason Kimi Raikkonen nearly went into the pit lane and then came back out again when the flag came out was investigated.  As the drivers went out again, Sainz lost power to his engine.  This looked good for the Williams drivers getting a clean sheet through to Q2 but the engine came back to life.

The stewards were going to be busy after the session as they decided to investigated both Williams drivers on the pit lane entry as well.

So out went Latifi, double world champion Alonso, Schumacher and Mazepin with Stroll.

At the end of the second qualifying session, Giovinnazi spun himself out of contention, Ocon joined his team mate for an early bath, Raikkonen qualified well, Russell too and Vettel participated.

In the final session, the first set of runs saw Bottas put in a stellar lap to finish quickest followed by his team mate.  Norris took a dusty detour and gave the advantage to Ricciardo and Gasly was best of the rest behind the Red Bulls and Mercedes.  In the end, Tsunoda left the track, distracted Perez and brought out a Yellow Flag to compromise Verstappen's lap.  So, despite all the misgivings about the engine, the Mercedes locked out the front row.  With Bottas stamping his mark on the race by qualifying on pole, we all know he will have to give up that place (Hamilton was "very proud" of him).  Both Red Bulls on the second row.  Then Ricciardo outqualified Norris and seems to have finally found his mojo at McLaren.  Gasly's performance continues to dominate over Tsunoda.  Sainz also seems to have found his place at Ferrari and outqualified LeClerc.

Tsunoda, Stroll, Ocon and Norris are all headed to the back of the grid for taking an engine change penalty and Russell is moving 5 places back for a gear box change.  Really we could do away with qualifying and just ask the teams what they want to change on the cars.