Ferrari's Leclerc grabs surprise pole for Mexico Grand Prix

A surprised Charles Leclerc admitted he did not expect his success on Saturday after he secured pole position ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz as Ferrari locked out the front row for Sunday's Mexico Grand Prix.

In a chaotic and confusing qualifying session that seemed set to see Max Verstappen on pole again, Ferrari emerged in Q3 with a surge of pace that surprised almost everyone.

The Monegasque clocked a best lap in one minute and 17.166 seconds to beat the Spaniard by 0.067 seconds, leaving newly-crowned three-time world champion Verstappen third for Red Bull.

"It's two weekends in a row where we say that we don't know if we have the pace," said Leclerc. "People will start not believing us anymore! To be honest, I did not expect to be on pole today - I thought we were lucky after FP3.

"But once we put everything together it all went well. The new tyres gained a lot, but I am already focusing on tomorrow's race. We may have pole position, but now we need to convert it into a win and obviously it is going to be very difficult."

Sainz admitted: "It was a strange one. This whole weekend I've struggled to put a lap together then the first lap I put together in Q3 was P1 and suddenly Charles beat me by half a tenth, one tenth...

"I'm just struggling to understand where we can find half a second -- and then we go half a second slower in the next lap. It's very tricky with the tyres.

"The feeling with the car is very strange around this circuit, but we managed to put a good lap in when it counted," he added.

Verstappen, who will be hunting a 51st career win in Sunday's race, said: "It's very difficult here.... It's very low grip around here because of the altitude so when you try and push a little bit more it goes a bit away from