Red Bull had proved extremely competitive in the free practice sessions, with Verstappen stamping his authority all over the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Mexico was known to be the venue, where Red Bull would have their best chance to fight for pole position. It was surprising to see, that both Mercedes drivers came out on the ultra-softs already in Q1. Sebastian showed excellent pace right away, and the German went fastest, setting the fastest ever lap time around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. The Red Bull aces came out at the halfway point of the first segment. The Red Bulls were absolutely shining especially in the last sector through the stadium. Verstappen went on the top, with teammate Ricciardo just a tenth off the pace. The Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Bottas came out on the hyper-softs at the end of the session. Bottas had an impressive second flyer, and topped the timesheets, with Hamilton second. The Ferraris and the Red Bulls, on the other hand, sat out the second runs. Both Saubers made it through to Q2, whilst both Haas drivers got knocked out already in Q1. Seeing McLaren's Vandoorne and the Williams duo of Stroll and Sirotkin out of Q2 was no surprise.
As the pink-walled hyper-soft compound was predicted to be an extremely unfavourable choice for the race, all three top teams resorted to the purple-marked ultra-soft rubber in Q2. More unexpected was to see both Force India cars come out on the super-softs, which is the hardest compound of the weekend. It was thrilling to see, how evenly matched the top three teams were in terms of performance. Verstappen was the fastest man of the second session, but edged Mercedes' Hamilton by four thousandths of a second only. Sebastian was third, only 0.075s off Max's benchmark. Ricciardo was fourth, followed by the Finns of Bottas and Kimi. As expected, all top six drivers came out on the softest compound at the end of the segment, but neither of them improved his lap time. The Force Indias made their second runs on the middle compound, which seemed a bizarre choice, as they both missed out on the decisive last segment. Mexico with its high air definitely mixed up the teams' pecking order. In addition to the top three teams, also both Renault drivers and both Saubers made it among the top ten.
The battle for pole was super exciting. Pole position was within any of the top six drivers' reach! Verstappen showed amazing pace and self-confidence, taking provisional pole. The gap to Sebastian was surprisingly big, 0.185s. Hamilton was third, two tenths down on flying Max. Ricciardo was fourth, Bottas fifth and Kimi sixth. Before the final runs, the question on everyone's mind was, whether Max would snatch the pole and rob the record of the youngest-ever pole-setter of Sebastian. However, something extremely unpredictable happened at the end of the session. Ricciardo's RB14 came alive on the Australian's second run, and the Honey Badger made it on pole by 0.026s to his teammate! This was the first pole position that Ricciardo hasn't scored in Monaco. Max made it a front row lock-out, which was the first for Red Bull since 2013! The championship leader Hamilton was left third, 0.135s off the pace. Sebastian was fourth (+0.2s), Bottas fifth (+0.4s) and Kimi sixth (0.5s). However, an interesting and revealing statistic detail is, that Kimi remains the only driver to start every race in the top six in 2018. The Renault duo of Hulkenberg and Sainz paired up on the fourth row, followed by the Sauber duo of Leclerc and Ericsson.
Verstappen was extremely disappointed after losing the eagerly-hunted pole to his teammate. Max didn't hold back his emotions, either. Entering the parc ferme, the Dutchman ostentatiously hit the number 2 sign. In the post-qualifying interview he referred to his qualifying as "crap". So I'm sure we're going to see an extremely gutted and hungry Verstappen at the start today. But there is a worrying question about Red Bull's reliability. Will both energy company cars make it to the chequered flag today? Hamilton, on the other hand, has no pressure in the race. P7 is enough for the Briton to secure his fifth world championship, no matter where Sebastian finishes. Without technical issues I believe we're going to see a Red Bull victory today. But I hope the red-suited drivers will be up there to challenge the Bulls closely. I'm definitely looking forward to an entertaining Mexico GP tonight!
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