MEXICO CITY — Lewis Hamilton’s long wait for pole position with Ferrari finally came to an end during qualifying at the Mexico City Grand Prix on Saturday.
The seven-time world champion ran a lap of 1 minute and 16.514 seconds to edge Mercedes driver George Russell by a mere .009 seconds to earn the 105th pole of his Formula 1 career.
“Wow! That felt great,” Hamilton said.. “That feels good. So happy. Oh man, I’m lost for words. It’s been a really, really tough, challenging weekend.
“Obviously, FP1, we had a rake running, and we obviously then had the engine issue we had yesterday, which meant that we were just on the back foot. I didn’t get to do a long run. But we’ve really done a good job with the set-up over the weekend.
“We’ve really worked, we’ve learned a lot from the last race. But it’s so close between us all, you know. And, for example, Q2, I didn’t get my lap at the beginning. I think the others had a new tire for the start.
“But wow, to have pole here, I mean, I don’t even know if I’ve had a pole here before. So it feels special to be in Mexico and get that. My first, I think this is my first pole with Ferrari. And 105… I like that number.”
Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and championship leader Kimi Antonelli filled the top five, which was separated by less than two-tenths of a second.
McLaren’s immense pace from FP3 faded as Lando Norris wound up sixth.
