Lewis Hamilton secured his first pole position for Ferrari and his first in more than three years during a tense qualifying session at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
The seven-year F1 champion edged Mercedes driver George Russell by just 0.009 seconds. The result locks out the front row for the two drivers who remain mathematically capable of preventing Kimi Antonelli from clinching the world championship this weekend. Antonelli qualified fifth behind Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, but will move up to fourth on the starting grid due to a one-place penalty assessed to Verstappen.
Antonelli can only be stopped from capturing the title if Russell wins the race and the Italian finishes lower than ninth, or if Hamilton wins and Antonelli finishes out of the points entirely. For Hamilton, the pole is his 105th in Formula 1 and his first since the Hungarian Grand Prix in July 2023, a span of three years and three months. At 41 years old, he becomes the oldest driver to secure a pole position since Mario Andretti took pole for Ferrari at the 1982 Italian Grand Prix.
“Oh man, I’m lost for words,” Hamilton said. “It’s been a really challenging weekend – we had the engine issue yesterday, which meant we were on the back foot and didn’t do a long run. We’ve done a really good job on the setup and to have pole here, wow, it feels special. It’s my first pole for Ferrari, and 105th, I like that number. To have your first Ferrari pole, it takes me back to watching Michael get all those poles when he was at Ferrari and all those wins.”
Both Hamilton and Russell emerged early for their initial runs, leaving them to watch as late contenders tried and failed to eclipse their times. Leclerc went first on the final runs, falling short of Hamilton’s benchmark by 0.119 seconds. Verstappen appeared poised to snatch pole after dominating the first two sectors, but a lock-up at the hairpin in the stadium section derailed his final lap.
“Already going into Turn 12 I had a car very close to me and I already lost time there with the dirty air,” Verstappen said. “And then going into the hairpin, instead of going on the left, I had one car on my right where you normally want to open up the corner. So it’s a bit of an awkward angle you have to go into the hairpin. Plus you lose your reference on the right-hand side where you are constantly looking. It’s a difficult corner to get right, that killed my lap.”
Russell expressed satisfaction with ending a difficult run of form, though he revealed he made a unilateral tactical choice not to complete a preparation lap after his out lap. He admitted he relied on a “gut feeling” despite team instructions to run extra fuel for a warmup lap, noting that the weight penalty was greater than the tiny margin that separated him from pole.
McLaren’s Lando Norris, who topped Q2 and led the initial runs in the final session, could not improve on his final attempt and settled for sixth on the grid. “Just not quick enough that’s all,” Norris said. “The lap was incredible in Q2 to put me P1. That was very unrealistic in terms of achieving that again in Q3. I am pretty happy with P6, can’t ask a lot more and pretty happy with the job I did with the car I have.”
Fernando Alonso looked positioned for his strongest qualifying result of the season with Aston Martin after going fastest on his initial run. However, a water leak in the energy recovery system of his Honda engine forced him to stop on track during his second attempt while running third. Alonso’s frustration boiled over during a brief post-session television interview where he answered four questions using a total of nine words, confirming the engine failure and lamenting that starting from the back leaves him helpless for the race.
Rounding out the top ten, Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls drivers Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad, and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly secured positions. Lawson was subsequently disqualified from qualifying due to a technical regulation infringement regarding the electrical deployment of his power unit, relegating him to the back of the grid.
