Mexico City GP Qualifying: Norris denies Leclerc, Verstappen fifth
F1 NewsSunday, 26 October 2025 at 00:05
Lando Norris fended off a late attack from Ferrari's Charles in qualifying for the 2025 Mexico City Grand Prix and took pole after a monstrous final lap in Q3 as Lewis Hamilton was third.
Norris led the way from the start of qualifying, topping Q1 and Q2, while Hamilton was his main challenger up to that point as George Russell was third in those first two stages.
On the other hand, reigning Formula 1 Champion, Max Verstappen, never looked good for pole from the moment his RB21 hit the track in Qualifying.
The Dutchman has been trialing with downforce levels on the rear wing of his car in FP3 before opting for a higher downforce version as it remains to be seen whether Red Bull have set their car up for race pace, something their star driver complained about, thus sacrificing qualifying pace.
When Q3 started, Leclerc put is a strong banker lap taking provisional pole, threatening Norris who then went on to deliver a scorcher in the second and final run, a 1:15.586 to take pole by 0.262s from the Monegasque.
Hamilton came in third, 0.352s off the pace on what was his best ever qualifying result since joining Ferrari at the start of the 2025 F1 season.
Russell managed to qualify in fourth, 0.448s off pole and just 0.036s faster than Verstappen who had to settle for fifth on the day.
Kimi Antonelli had a tough time making it out of Q1, but then steadily went through Q2 and Q3 but was only able to qualifying sixth in the end, over half a second off the pole time.
Behind Antonelli, Carlos Sainz concluded a bitter sweet qualifying for Williams who lost Alex Albon in Q1, but also because the Spaniard who showed great pace throughout the session, ending it seventh fastest, will have to drop five places (to P12) on the starting grid of the race due to the penalty he received in the United States Grand Prix after crashing with Antonelli.
Oscar Piastri had a terrible qualifying, posting the eighth fastest time, and a painful six tenths off the pace of his pole-winning teammate. He will advance one position on the starting grid though after Sainz's penalty comes into effect.
It was a huge blow to the Aussie who saw his title rivals, Norris and Verstappen, qualifying ahead of him.
Isack Hadjar, once again, delivered and made Q3 and was ninth fastest ahead of another excellent performer, Ollie Bearman who was tenth in the Haas.
What the top three said
Norris cut a confident figure after taking his fifth pole position this season; he commented: "I'm here to win.
"I'll be looking forward. I know I'm going to have some quick guys behind me. It's a long run down to Turn 1 and so firth. The race pace from the Ferraris is normally very strong.
"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," he concluded.
Second-placed Leclerc added: "This qualifying is very, very difficult because there is very little grip, so the car is sliding a lot. In order to put everything together it's very tricky.
"But I'm pretty happy with the job we've done. I don't think there was much more in the car, there was a bit here and there as always in qualifying, but very happy with today's performance.
"It would mean a lot [to win]. So we will do everything to get the first place into the first corner and then see what's possible," Leclerc concluded.
As for Hamilton, he was clearly overjoyed by his third place; he added: "This is the first time we've both [Hamilton and Leclerc] been in the top three in Qualifying this year and the team truly deserve it.
"We are just working as hard as we can. We've not really moved the car forward necessarily in development, but we've extracted more from it and the processes are better.
"P3 is kind of the perfect spot at this track, so I'm hoping I can make the most of that. Our race pace is not too bad. It's difficult to know, but we'll try and give it a good race," the seven-time F1 Champion concluded.
Q1: Albon out, Antonelli barely makes Q2
In partly cloud conditions, Qualifying started as track temperatures rose one more, considerably, compared to the final practice session to 49 degrees Celsius as ambient temperature at 2 km over see level was 26 degrees.
Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were out first and the latter then started a flying lap first as his teammate followed. The Canadian went to the top but then the Spaniard went even faster.
Franco Colapinto went second fastest as Bearman went to the top from his first attempt as Nico Hulkenberg slotted in second as Gabriel Bortoleto lost his first time for track limits at Turn 12.
Then the big teams came, as Norris started a flier with Piastri following him. The Briton went fastest while the Aussie then went only third.
Hamilton followed and went fourth as Leclerc posted the second fastest time as Hadjar went third only for Liam Lawson to drop him to fourth.
Then Verstappen started his lap and almost lost it at Turn 9 and ended up posting the third fastest time. Antonelli went sixth fastest while Russell went up to second.
With less than eight minutes remaining, the second round of laps began with some drivers staying out for another run on the same tyres while others opted to pit ahead of their second attempts.
In the drop zone with less than five minutes: Pierre Gasly - Yuki Tsunoda - Colapinto - Hulkenberg - Stroll. But those names kept changing as the track kept ramping up and times continued to drop which meant no one was safe.
And as Q1 was over, it was Hadjar who was fastest with a 1:16.733, 0.003s faster than Hamilton in second with Russell third.
The rest of the top 15: Norris - Esteban Ocon - Lawson - Leclerc - Bearman - Verstappen - Piastri - Sainz - Alonso - Tsunoda - Hulkenberg - Antonelli.
Those eliminated were Bortoleto who was 16th fastest losing out to Antonelli by 0.121s as Albon's brake struggles meant he was only 17th.
Gasly was 18th fastest ahead of Stroll in 19th as Colapinto was dead last.
Q2: Tsunoda out, Piastri makes it in the last minute
Q2 kicked off with Lawson and Hadjar heading out on track first as Leclerc and Hamilton followed them in their Ferraris as Hulkenberg, Alonso and the others joined.
Hadjar started his timed lap first and went to the top with Hulkenberg in his wake going even faster as Hamilton slotted in second with Verstappen going fastest.
Leclerc then claimed the top spot with Sainz in second behind him, as Norris and Piastri started their laps. Norris went to the top as Piastri went only ninth on used Softs.
Piastri reported something weird happening with his power unit in Turn 5.
With the first runs done, the order was: Norris - Leclerc - Sainz - Verstappen - Hulkenberg - Tsunoda - Hamilton - Hadjar - Russell - Piastri.
In the drop zone: Bearman - Ocon - Alonso - Antonelli - Lawson.
With five minutes remaining, the second round of laps started with Lawson who did not post a lap the first to start his final attempt to make Q3.
With Q2 over, it was Norris, once again who was the fastest with a lap time of 1:16.252, 0.206s faster than Hamilton who was second, again, as Russell completed an unchanged Q2 top three compared to Q1.
The rest of the top ten were: Verstappen - Sainz - Leclerc - Piastri - Antonelli - Bearman - Hadjar.
Out of qualifying ahead of Q3 were Tsunoda who was 11th, losing out to his potential replacement, Hadjar, by 0.012s.
Ocon was 12th in the Haas as Hulkenberg was 13th in the Sauber with Alonso and Lawson 14th and 15th respectively.
Q3: Leclerc puts up a fight but falls short
The ten remaining car made their way out on track with Norris, Verstappen, Piastri, Sainz, and Bearman leading the way.
Hamilton and Leclerc followed with Antonelli and Russell the last to join.
Verstappen started his lap first and Norris followed him as Piastri also joined them going for his Q3 banker lap.
Verstappen went fastest as Norris went even faster with Piastri only third as both Ferrari and Sainz started their laps.
Sainz went fourth as Hamilton went second while Leclerc went to the top for provisional pole. Russell was sixth as Antonelli was seventh.
Order after first runs: Leclerc - Norris - Hamilton - Verstappen - Piastri - Russell - Antonelli - Sainz - Hadjar - Bearman.
With three and a half minutes remaining, he remaining ten cars were out on track for a final time on Saturday to decide the starting order of the top ten.
Verstappen, Piastri, Hadjar, Sainz, and Bearman were first as Norris followed with both Ferrari as well while both Russell and Antonelli stayed behind.
Piastri went first as Verstappen followed with Sainz in their wake in the Williams. Piastri improved to third as Verstappen went second while Sainz went fourth.
But then Norris came and went fastest as Hamilton went only second with Leclerc finally coming over the line but only in second.
Final order: Norris - Leclerc - Hamilton - Russell - Verstappen - Antonelli - Sainz - Piastri - Hadjar - Bearman.
Sainz will serve a five-place grid penalty for his incident with Antonelli in Austin.
Mexico City GP Qualifying Provisional Classification
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