Norris piles pressure on Piastri with Mexico pole
MEXICO CITY :McLaren's Lando Norris stormed to pole position with an epic lap at the Mexico City Grand Prix on Saturday, with the Formula One lead in his sights after teammate Oscar Piastri qualified seventh.
Briton Norris, 14 points behind Australian Piastri in the standings with five rounds remaining, beat Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to the top spot by 0.262 seconds after leaving his best to last.
It was the 14th pole of his F1 career, fifth of the season and first since Belgium in July.
"What a lap. Even I don't know how I did that," Norris said over the team radio as he realised the time of one minute 15.586 seconds was unbeatable.
"Obviously, it was an incredible lap," he said after stepping out of the car. "It was one of those laps where everything just came together."
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, the seven-times world champion chasing his first podium for the team he joined in January, will start third, a season's best, with Mercedes' George Russell lining up fourth.
Red Bull's reigning world champion Max Verstappen, 40 points behind Piastri and winner of three of the last four races, qualified fifth with work to do on Sunday and sounding gloomy.
"I need people to retire in front of me to go ahead," he said.
"Every lap that I did this weekend has not been good. In the short run or the long run it never felt in the window and that is not going to suddenly change tomorrow for the better.”.
Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli qualified sixth.
Piastri was eighth at the chequered flag but will move up a place because Williams' Carlos Sainz, qualifying seventh, has a five-place grid drop carried over from the previous round in Austin.
NORRIS SHOWS HIS PACE
"There’s just no pace which is a bit of a mystery," said Piastri, who needs to finish in the top four to stay ahead if Norris wins.
"It’s been more or less the same gap all weekend, so we’ll have a look at where it was going wrong. Obviously it’s a bit frustrating. It’s just this weekend and last weekend it’s felt like the pace hasn’t come."
Norris had shown his pace in final practice when he became the third different driver to top the timesheets in the three sessions, punching out an impressive lap 0.345 faster than anyone else.
The Briton was fourth in the first phase of qualifying led by Racing Bulls's Isack Hadjar ahead of Hamilton and Russell, while Verstappen was ninth and Piastri 10th after abandoning a fastest lap.
Norris was fastest in phase two, with Hamilton and Russell again second and third, while Verstappen and Piastri were fourth and seventh.
Piastri had flirted with a shock exit, out of the top 10 until his final effort secured his place in the final shootout.
Leclerc then put his Ferrari on provisional pole, ahead of Norris and Hamilton with Verstappen fourth and Piastri fifth ahead of their final flying laps.
"It's a long run down to Turn One...the race pace from the Ferraris is normally very strong," Norris said. "I'm expecting a battle, I'm not expecting it to be easy. Eyes forward and I'll see how much I can win by."
Hadjar will start in eighth place, with Haas's Oliver Bearman ninth and Verstappen's teammate Yuki Tsunoda completing the top 10 after qualifying 11th.
(Additonal reporting by Angelica Medina, editing by Ed Osmond)
