Bottas on Mexican GP pole as Mercedes upstages Red Bull

Valtteri Bottas led a shock first Mercedes front row lockout of the 2021 Formula 1 season as Red Bull’s early promise at the Mexican Grand Prix crumbled.

Red Bull was sixth tenths of a second clear of Mercedes in FP3, but it had no answer for the pace of Mercedes in the final part of qualifying.

Bottas took his second pole in three F1 weekends with two laps good enough to top qualifying.

His best was a 1m15.875s, 0.145s quicker than his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton was faster than championship leader Max Verstappen, who complained about the balance of his Red Bull throughout Saturday and required tape to be fitted to his rear wing during qualifying.

Sergio Perez fluffed his final Q3 lap after encountering an errant Yuki Tsunoda, but fortunately for the Mexican his first effort was good enough for a place on the second row alongside Verstappen.

Verstappen encountered the duo going off ahead on his final lap and had to lift off, but it was likely the lap wouldn’t have been good enough to break up the all-Mercedes front row.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was only a tenth adrift of Perez in fifth place with Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari narrowly beating the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo to take sixth place on the grid.

Charles Leclerc was eighth ahead of Tsunoda and Lando Norris who had to play supportive roles for their respective team-mates as both will head to the back of the grid with engine penalties.

In Q2, Norris was able to deny Sebastian Vettel a first Q3 appearance since Spa two months ago.

Kimi Raikkonen earned his best qualifying performance of the year in 12th place and will start Sunday’s race from 10th on the grid – if he escapes a post-session investigation for a red flag rules infringement in Q1.

George Russell qualified 13th but will go back five places because of a gearbox penalty. Russell and his Williams team-mate Nicholas Latifi will also face an investigation for queue-jumping in the pitlane as Q1 resumed after a red flag stoppage.

Antonio Giovinazzi spun on his final flying lap at the Turn 12 right-hander and ended up in 14th place, only ahead of the Alpine of Esteban Ocon (another penalty-hit driver) in Q2.

🚩 RED FLAG 🚩

Stroll into the barriers. The Canadian is ok and out of the car.#MexicoGP 🇲🇽 #F1 pic.twitter.com/EqN5CszFwl

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 6, 2021

Q1 was red-flagged after Lance Stroll lost control of his Aston Martin at the final corner, around seven minutes into the 18-minute session.

Stroll was due to start at the back of the grid anyway due to engine component changes but his hefty shunt into the barriers could lead to the Canadian having to start from the pitlane.

The session resumed after a 25-minute pause to repair the barriers at the final corner and Stroll was eliminated along with the Haas duo, Latifi and Fernando Alonso.

Alonso was 0.326s slower than his Alpine team-mate Ocon, who took the final place in Q2, ensuring Alonso suffered his first Q1 exit since Monaco.

Qualifying Results