Max Verstappen left stunned by what happened at end of Mexico GP qualifying

Max Verstappen will start the Mexican Grand Prix on the front row alongside pole sitter Carlos Sainz while his F1 title rival Lando Norris had to settle for third on the grid

Max Verstappen admitted he thought a place on the front row at the Mexican Grand Prix was beyond him.

The Dutchman has won five of the last six F1 races at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. But his preparations for this year's edition have been far from smooth after engine issues in Friday practice.

And even after a power unit change ahead of Saturday's running, he still wasn't happy with the balance of his Red Bull. He had one provisional pole lap deleted for corner cutting but was still quick enough with his final effort to go faster than everyone except Carlos Sainz.

"Yesterday, I barely did any laps so we were playing a lot of catch-up," Verstappen said. "FP3 was not very good, so I was already I think under a lot of pressure to have a good qualifying. And then, of course, my lap time got taken away which added a little bit more pressure. But I am very happy to be on the front row. I honestly did not expect that to be possible.

"It is probably one of the hardest tracks to get right. Street circuits are difficult and this one as well, because it is low downforce and it is very easy to have a lock-up or a slide and the tyres overheat immediately. So it is one of the tricky ones on the calendar."

Ferrari are in a strong position to make it back-to-back wins as they again showed off the strength of their Austin upgrades. Both of Sainz's Q3 laps would have been good enough for pole and, naturally, he was beaming as he spoke after the session.

The Spaniard said: "I am very happy, it was a great couple of laps. A lot of the time around Mexico you have the feeling that you cannot put a lap together and it is extremely difficult with how much sliding there is, but today, my two laps in Q3 were pretty much identical, almost perfect.

"Since Austin, especially on my side, we have done a step up. In qualifying, I have been trying to find something extra on the out lap with tyre preparation and, yeah, it seems like we are going in the right direction.

"I am looking forward to finishing the job tomorrow, but I will take the pole position today because it shows we progress and some really solid laps. I will be looking forward to keeping P1 into turn one and hopefully, from there, our race pace should be good enough to win it."

Verstappen's title rival Lando Norris will be right behind him, third on the grid, and admitted he has no idea who will have the most race pace. He said: "None of us have done proper long runs on the tyres that we are going to be on tomorrow, so there are question marks over all of us. But we are in a good position, so I am looking forward to it."

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