Vettel snatches pole from Verstappen in Mexico

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel snatched pole position from Red Bull's Max Verstappen with a phenomenal pole time for the Mexican Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton is set to start Sunday's race from third place alongside his Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas.

Mexican Grand Prix - Qualifying results

Q1: Hamilton top, Alonso shines, Gasly out

Blue skies and sunshine had helped boost the track temperature to 43C in time for the start of qualifying. Haas duo Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen were first out, with Toro Rosso's Brendon Hartley setting the early pace with a lap of 1:19.948s.

The Ferraris easily bettered that, and then it was Mercedes' turn to go top. Hamilton put in an initial gambit of 1:17.518s which was six hundredths faster than his team mate Valtteri Bottas. Max Verstappen went third fastest ahead of Sebastian Vettel.

However, the most eyecatching performance of the round was Fernando Alonso. Despite labouring under a hefty load of grid penalties for Sunday, Alonso put in an initial 'proof of concept' lap to go fifth fastest.

That put him ahead of local favourite Sergio Perez in the Force India, followed by Kimi Raikkonen, Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon. Alonso was the only driver to subsequently go out for a second run, but it did not improve his situation.

Pierre Gasly was unable to take part in qualifying due to the engine issue he suffered in final practice. He was joined on the sidelines after Q1 by the two Saubers of Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein, and by the lacklustre brace of Haas entries.

Q2: Verstappen flies as Hartley halts

Bottas went top with his initial lap in Q2, with Hamilton backing off in his first lap. However the Briton came back with 1:17.035s on his second run to put him 0.023s ahead of Vettel with Bottas pushed down to third ahead of Raikkonen.

Verstappen's first run was thwarted by local yellows for Brendon Hartley, whose Toro Rosso lost power before he could set a time. The STR12 was quickly hustled down a service road, and Verstappen then punched in a new track record time of 1:16.524s to stake his claim at the top.

Verstappen was unable to improve his time further with his second run, but Vettel did find some extra time to steal second from Hamilton. Bottas, Raikkonen and Ricciardo held station followed by the Renaults of Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg, and the Force Indias of Ocon and Perez.

The two Williams of Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll struggled for grip and missed out on avoiding elimination. Along with Hartly's early exit from Q2, neither McLaren opted to set a time during the second round.

Q3: Vettel muscles Verstappen aside with phenomenal final effort

Hamilton opened Q3 with his best lap yet, clocking in at 1:16.934s. Verstappen had backed off during his first effort, which in turn caught out Bottas who locked up behind him. The incident was later reviewed by race stewards for possible impeding.

There were no such problems for Vettel, who went top by a tenth faster than his title rival. But Verstappen was straight back on it: his second lap delivered a breathless provisional pole time of 1:16.574s. That was a quarter of a second faster than Vettel.

Vettel came back out and dug deep on his final run to find enough time to snatch pole from Verstappen by 0.086s. Bottas was able to improve to fourth, joining Hamilton on the second row of the grid for Sunday's race.

Raikkonen was fifth fastest, putting him on the grid alongside Ocon. Ricciardo was no match for his team mate today and was seventh fastest ahead of the two Renaults of Hulkenberg and Sainz.

Perez had a disappointing final qualifying run before his adoring home fans and will line up in tenth for tomorrow's start.

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