Sainz on pole in Mexico, Verstappen ahead of Norris

MEXICO CITY :Ferrari's Carlos Sainz beat Formula One title contenders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris to pole position at the Mexico City Grand Prix on Saturday with a fastest lap he said was almost perfect.

Red Bull's championship leader Verstappen joined the Spaniard on the front row with McLaren's Norris, 57 points behind with five races remaining, qualifying third.

"Very happy to be on the front row, I honestly didn't think that would be possible," said Verstappen, who has won five of the last six races in Mexico.

The Dutch driver's first flying lap in the final shootout was deleted for exceeding track limits, leaving everything hanging on his final effort.

"Carlos and Max did good laps, especially Carlos has been very quick all weekend. I’m happy with third," said Norris, who could hope to use his car's speed to good effect on the long opening run from the start.

The pole was the sixth of Sainz's career and first in more than a year.

The Spaniard, who is leaving Ferrari for Williams at the end of the season and is out of the title reckoning, lapped with a best time of one minute 15.946 seconds.

"A lot of times around Mexico you always have the feeling like you cannot put a lap together and it’s extremely difficult with how much sliding there is," he said.

"But today honestly my two laps in Q3 (the final phase) were pretty much identical, almost perfect. I’ll be just looking forward to keep that P1 into Turn One, and from there hopefully our race pace should be good enough to win it."

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, winner in Texas last weekend in a Ferrari one-two, will start in fourth place with the Mercedes pair of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton fifth and sixth respectively.

Kevin Magnussen qualified seventh for Haas with