Carlos Sainz seized pole position for Sunday's Mexico City Grand Prix with a consummate performance for Ferrari in Saturday's qualifying session, outpacing Red Bull's defending champion Max Verstappen. The Spaniard, who leaves the team at the end of the season, clocked one minute and 15.946 seconds to beat series leader and three time champion Verstappen, whose first and fastest lap in the top 10 shoot-out was deleted, by 0.225 seconds. This left McLaren's Lando Norris, who is 57 points behind Verstappen in the drivers' title race, to take third ahead of Charles Leclerc in the second Ferrari and the Williams of George Russell and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton.