Winners and losers from the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix qualifying

Carlos Sainz brought out the Spanish fury in Mexico to score his first pole in over a year and a chance to perhaps take one last win with Ferrari before he changes to Williams colours for the F1 2025 season.

A fantastic pole for Sainz and a brilliant lap from Max Verstappen dealt another blow to Lando Norris, who will have to fight again on track against the Dutch driver after all the controversy from last week’s US GP.

Winners and losers from the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix qualifying

WINNERS

Carlos Sainz and Ferrari

After not having the best of luck at the start of the last Grand Prix, the Spanish driver has secured his first pole position since the Singapore GP in 2023. After a three-week break, Sainz has returned with full energy and a winning mentality to finish his final races with Ferrari on a high.

Sainz beat Charles Leclerc in P4 by 0.319s, a particularly good result for the Italian team despite the Monegasque driver’s mistake which prevented a Ferrari 1-2 on the grid.

With Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez out of the fight, Ferrari has another great chance to seal a 1-2 in the race thanks to the superior race pace of the SF-24 over the MCL38 and the RB20. A qualifying that undoubtedly allows them to dream even more about fighting for the Constructors’ Championship.

Ferrari will also have a strategic advantage to attack in the race with both their drivers in great form, unlike their direct rivals who are currently limping on one of their two legs.

Max Verstappen

After a nightmare Friday with hardly any running with various problems in the RB20, Verstappen has once again found magic where there was none in his car to secure a spot on the front row of the grid for the Mexican GP.

The Dutch driver is Red Bull’s only weapon in the fight for second place in the Constructors’ Championship. Despite having a car with potentially worse pace than McLaren and Ferrari, Verstappen again delivered another important blow especially to Lando Norris.

In addition, on the long Mexico main straight, he will have the poleman’s slipstream directly in his favour to try to get into P1 in Turn 1. Will he use the same tactic he used on Norris at the start in Austin? Will Sainz be able to put a ‘wall’ between he and the Red Bull driver? Things might get spicy at the start of the race…

Pierre Gasly

The Alpine driver’s qualifying was discreet, but very special. The Frenchman qualified P8 while his teammate Esteban Ocon was eliminated in Q1 in P19.

With a time of 1:16.892, Gasly was just seven thousandths of a second off Kevin Magnussen in a Haas which has already established itself as the fifth force on the grid and clearly superior to Alpine.

It seems that painting the car as a McLaren, as happened in Austin, was not just a mirage but actually attracted extra performance, especially for Gasly who made it into Q3 for the second time in a row.

Alexander Albon

The Thai driver beat Franco Colapinto again with a very positive qualifying performance. While the Argentinean driver was knocked out in Q1, Albon managed a surprising P9, a position that makes Williams dream of fighting for points in the race.

It won’t be an easy task as Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez should come through from the back of the grid and Haas seem to be in great form. But to be in the fight in qualifying is already something very important to give yourself a chance and that’s what Albon has done at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

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LOSERS

Oscar Piastri

Complete shock for the Australian driver who was eliminated in Q1 with a poor time of 1:17.597.

Piastri started Q1 on a medium tyre like the rest of the top four drivers with the vision of saving a set of new soft tyres for Q3 in view of the expected track evolution.

On the soft tyre, the Australian made a big mistake on his first attempt at the start of Sector 3, running wide at Turn 12 and having his lap eliminated for exceeding track limits.

McLaren also made a mistake here. They decided not to stop Piastri and fit a fresh set of soft tyres after his mistake at Turn 12, instead thinking that the old set would still be sufficient.

But it wasn’t. Also, because Piastri had to do a new push lap with only one cooldown lap, when the ideal especially on this circuit is two laps to cool down the tyres, he didn’t have enough fuel in the tank to do so.

There was enough time left on the clock to make a quick tyre change in the pitlane, hence his elimination in Q1 is mostly his fault, but McLaren could also have reacted quickly and sacrificed a set of soft tyres for Q3. That would have better than starting P17 tomorrow.

Sergio Perez

The nightmare continues for Checo and Red Bull. The marriage is at a critical point and divorce is probably the best solution for both parties. Not even in front of his home crowd is the Mexican driver able to find the inspiration to at least make it through to Q2.

A truly dreadful qualifying performance has drastically reduced his chances of scoring points in the race and with that, Red Bull’s chances of even dreaming of second place in the Constructors’ Championship at the end of the season.

This circuit was expected to be something special for Perez, a place where he could get back on track; at ease with the car and himself. Quite the opposite. This bad result at home is tremendously more painful than all the previous bad results this year. It’s hard to see Checo like this.

Yuki Tsunoda

After all the rumours about a possible test with Red Bull at the end of the year driven by Honda, amid the bad results of Perez who is even unable to pass Q1 in front of his home crowd, Yuki also failed at a key moment.

The Japanese driver lost the rear axle of his car in his last Q2 attempt at the exit of the tricky Turn 12 where Piastri also lost his chance to go through to Q2. He was running 11th and only 81 thousandths of a second was enough for a top 10 spot.

If Tsunoda really wants to be considered as a candidate to replace Perez at Red Bull for the 2025 season, he can’t make this kind of mistake. The only positive is that he finished ahead of Liam Lawson… but only by 33 thousandths of a second in what is the New Zealander’s second qualifying since returning.

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