Qualifying report
Mexican GP: Top 10 quotes after qualifying
Sebastian Vettel secured his 50th career pole with a time of 1’16”488.
Photo by: Sutton Images
| Cla | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Sebastian Vettel |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 1'16.488 | |
| “Obviously I am really happy, I had a perfect lap in the end, even if the track here is difficult and very slippery. It is easy to make mistakes going over the limit here. But I thought to myself that if I could get T1 right, then I’d have a better chance. The last sector was also tricky because you know how easily you can go wide and lose a lot of time, but I managed to push and stay clean. So, I am really happy, especially because other cars were close and it’s nice to hold everybody off. Yesterday the car was not where we wanted to be, but today everything was ok, and I think tomorrow we’ll be quick enough. Let’s see what happens at the start and after that we should have a good race. I know it’s a long way to Turn 1, but overall I am confident because our starts are good. Last weekend it was tough for the whole team because it went through of a lot of work and a lot of changes. This weekend has been better, I think we deserved to get the result today and hope to have a great race tomorrow!” | |||||
| 2 |  Max Verstappen |
Red Bull | TAG | 1'16.574 | 0.086 |
| "Another front row qualification so I am pretty satisfied with today's result. Q2 was really good but somehow we lost a bit in Q3 with the tyres, I couldn't get them to work and struggled for grip. I would say the Q3 lap was better but I just didn't have the grip from the previous session. The plan was to abort the first lap in both sessions and use that as a build lap. At the end of the day we are still second and on the front row so no big issue. It is always nice to get a pole position but winning the race is more important. I am confident in the race pace of the car and that we can achieve a good result but we still have to show this tomorrow. Starting on the front row with such a long run into Turn 1 means we can hopefully get away well and ahead. We are usually quicker in the race than Qualifying so I am excited for tomorrow." | |||||
| 3 |  Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 1'16.934 | 0.446 |
| “Pole position was the goal today, but it wasn't meant to be. It was a difficult session and I think it was a difficult weekend overall. It is very slippery here; and some of the issues we have with the car are a little bit highlighted by that. I gave it everything I had, but the gap to the front was too big. Our long run pace is definitely better than our qualifying pace, so I'm not worried about that. But you need a big delta to overtake here, so track position is important. It is a long way down to Turn 1, so we should have some fun tomorrow. I'm hoping I'm able to move forward at the start. Afterwards it should be a one-stop strategy. The crowd looks incredible, there's a lot of energy. It's such a spectacle from above; I saw the camera from the helicopter. So winning here on Mexican soil would be pretty neat.” | |||||
| 4 |  Valtteri Bottas |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 1'16.958 | 0.470 |
| “Our qualifying wasn't good enough; we thought we could fight for the pole. We definitely struggled a bit compared to at least one of the Ferraris and one of the Red Bulls, for some reason they found quite a bit of lap time for Q3. The incident with Max ruined my first lap in Q3; I just couldn't get back to the normal line for braking. However, I'm still optimistic for the race. We had good long runs yesterday and we'll have a strong car tomorrow. As a team, we're starting from the second row, and it's such a long run into Turn 1 here. Hopefully we can have a good start and use the slipstream to our advantage. It should be an interesting race.” | |||||
| 5 | Kimi Raikkonen |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 1'17.238 | 0.750 |
| “It was a pretty difficult qualifying and the result is far from ideal. I struggled to put a decent lap together, I was lacking grip and made mistakes here and there. In some moments it felt good, in others not so, it was very easy to make a mistake. Every time I tried to push a bit more the front end seemed to lock up, especially in the last sector. In Q3 I only tried to get a lap time without any big issues, to be able to get somewhere, but I knew I was slow. Tomorrow is another day, I’m sure it will be better. It’s hard to predict what will happen, but as long as we get a good feeling and the tires are working well we should be ok. Hopefully we’ll make a good start and then see what happens in the straight and in the first corner. We’ll try to stay out of trouble and be in a strong position after that”. | |||||
| 6 |  Esteban Ocon |
Force India | Mercedes | 1'17.437 | 0.949 |
| “It was an awesome qualifying session. I’m really happy. The car was not so easy to drive yesterday, but the team did an amazing job overnight to find some more performance. Everybody at the track and back at the factory worked hard to make some improvements and I could really feel the difference today. They gave me a really strong car and during the session the pace just got better and better. I actually made a small mistake on my final lap in Q3 so maybe I could have been even faster and ahead of Raikkonen. Even so, I’m really pleased with this result and excited for the race. We have strong race pace, good top speed and the potential is there for a very strong result.” | |||||
| 7 |  Daniel Ricciardo |
Red Bull | TAG | 1'17.447 | 0.959 |
| "We have been strong all weekend but in Qualifying we just didn't have any grip. I topped the times in FP2 and Max did the same this morning so we didn't really touch the car from yesterday, but every time I left the pits today I just had no grip. We tried experimenting in Q3 and doing an extra warm-up lap to try and give the tyres something extra, but it seemed that the grip I had when I left the box, was the grip I had until the end of each run. Sometimes you get one set of tyres that you can't turn on or warm up properly and you might lose some time, but every run it seemed to be the same story. This morning the track was really cold and we were still able to post a time on the first lap, so it should have been a breeze to get the tyres up to temperature this afternoon. If we can get the car back to what we had before Qualifying then I think we can still fight for a podium tomorrow, but this is confusing and we really need to understand what happened in the last hour." | |||||
| 8 | Nico Hulkenberg |
Renault | Renault | 1'17.466 | 0.978 |
| “It was a good qualifying, I got a really good lap at the end of Q3 so I’m very happy and satisfied about that. It’s going to be a tight battle tomorrow but we are going to push hard and do our best.” | |||||
| 9 |  Carlos Sainz Jr. |
Renault | Renault | 1'17.794 | 1.306 |
| “This is a good day for myself and for the team, we continue our progress since Austin, I am very pleased. Qualifying was tricky but we advanced a lot since yesterday and I was feeling a lot more confident with the car today. We are aiming to have a good race tomorrow.” | |||||
| 10 |  Sergio Perez |
Force India | Mercedes | 1'17.807 | 1.319 |
| “Today hasn’t gone as I was hoping and that’s very disappointing. We have been very competitive all weekend, but we couldn’t achieve the result we wanted at the most important moment. I was quite satisfied in Q1 and our pace showed a lot of promise, but as the conditions changed we weren’t able to respond. We changed our tyre warm-up routine and I lost all my feeling with the car. Getting the tyres in the right window was difficult and I was unhappy with the balance: it’s something we will need to analyse tonight. Tomorrow’s race will be challenging, but our car has very good pace. I want to give my fans something to celebrate: all weekend I have received an incredible amount of support and today they deserved a lot more. I was happy to be able to speak to all of them at the start of the session and I hope we can give them a better result tomorrow.” | |||||
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