Mexican Grand Prix, live blog, updates, grid, Max Verstappen, George Russell, Daniel Ricciardo, times, streams, how to watch

Max Verstappen leads the Mexican Grand Prix from pole position ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes after a frenetic start. Verstappen brilliantly started off the line in his Red Bull to hold off the Mercedes before the first corner.

Starting second, George Russell’s other Mercedes ran a little wide in Turns 2 and 3, seeing him lose two places to Hamilton and local hero Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull.

There was a lot more chaos at the back of the field, as Lance Stroll moved up five places to climb to 15th in his Aston Martin. Stroll, who picked up a three-place grid penalty after a crash with Fernando Alonso last week, was still far from happy when he complained: “I’m sliding all over the place man, I don’t have no fucking grip!”

Stroll was forced to fiercely defend Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri, who forced the Canadian wide after locking – but remarkably didn’t give up after passing him for 15th. He roared down the track as Stroll was quickly caught up in a battle with Alex Albon. Gasly was then given a five-second penalty after a very late decision by the stewards.

Daniel Ricciardo meanwhile lost two places to 13th place from the start, before overtaking Zhou Guanyu’s Alfa Romeo to return to 12th on lap nine. His team-mate Lando Norris dropped to 10th from the start, also losing two places – being overtaken by the two Alpines, who lead them to the constructors’ championship.

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OVERVIEW

Daniel Ricciardo recorded his best qualifying result in his last five races, but the Australian still admitted it was a “missed opportunity” ahead of Monday’s Mexican Grand Prix.

It was an improvement for Ricciardo, who qualified only 17th for the United States Grand Prix – the third time in five races that he has failed to make it past Q1, where the bottom five drivers are eliminated.

But even still, there was a lingering sense of disappointment for Ricciardo, who was just 0.053 seconds away from joining the top 10 drivers in Sunday morning’s qualifying session.

“Missed opportunity for sure,” said Ricciardo sky sports.

“I think the first moto in Q2 was decent; the lap was kind of there, I knew there were a few tenths on the table in a few corners. I felt like everything was coming together nicely.

“There’s so much going on here with the tire preparation and we just didn’t have any in this last race. I felt quite heavily compromised, I was surprised the lap was so close with the preparation that we had.

“On the one hand it’s good to be competitive, but the truth is that we missed an opportunity today.”

Ricciardo added Sunday’s results were “encouraging”, with McLaren team-mate Lando Norris finishing eighth.

“I think everything will be fine tomorrow,” he said.

“It’s always difficult here for the equipment with the altitude, with the engines, the brakes and everything, a lot of teams have to come here with modifications, so you never know how the race will go. I think that everything will be fine.

Two-time world champion Max Verstappen secured pole position with a solid late qualifying lap of 1min 17.775sec, finishing 0.304 seconds ahead of George Russell and his Mercedes teammate, seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton.

Hometown hero Sergio Perez finished fourth ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and a resurgent Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas while Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas came sixth.

Charles Leclerc, who crashed heavily on Saturday, was seventh in second Ferrari ahead of Norris and the Alpines of double champion Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon.

Russell was confident of challenging Verstappen and Red Bull for top spot ahead of Sunday’s qualifying and maintained Mercedes were “definitely” capable of claiming victory.

“P2 is a great place to start,” Russell said. sky sports.

“I’m really proud of the work done by the team. It’s our best qualifying of the year for us, we were the fastest in every session except in Q3 unfortunately. There are a lot of promises to keep.

“I think this weekend we had the fastest car and if you have the fastest car there’s no reason you can’t win the race.

“Max did a great job today, as he regularly does week after week, but it’s going to be very difficult to pass him. They gain about three tenths over us on the straight.

“We can certainly beat Red Bull, but I don’t think we can overtake on the track. So you have to be strategic. I guess having Lewis and me there, we can be aggressive.

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