Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz is eyeing a perfect start in the Mexico City Grand Prix after taking a stunning pole position ahead of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris during what had been a dramatic qualifying session featuring a red flag in Q2 and two shock exits in Q1.

Verstappen enters the race with a 57-point lead over Norris, who needs to gain nearly 12 points per race on the Red Bull driver to overtake him in the remaining five races.

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Norris qualified his McLaren just 0.089 seconds behind Verstappen, while Sainz dominated with a pole position lap 0.225 seconds faster than the Dutchman, showcasing Ferrari’s recent surge in form.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari’s second driver and winner of last weekend’s United States Grand Prix, starts fourth, followed by Mercedes’ George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

All eyes are on the top four as they head to the season’s longest first corner, where the strong slipstream effect could favour those starting in second and third.

“Probably the biggest difficult thing will be the run down into Turn One and starting on pole with a slipstream, no?

“I just need to make sure I do a good 0-100km/h, which is the most important thing when you start on pole, just make sure you do a good jump. And from there obviously do the best I can to defend,” Sainz said.

“I have two guys behind fighting for quite important things and the run down into Turn One should be interesting. I have obviously less to lose in that sense,” he added.

To boost his title hopes, Norris needs to win the race and hope the Ferraris finish between him and Verstappen. But the Briton fears the pace of the Ferraris – Leclerc has taken two wins and a second in the last four races.

Norris, who needs to win the race and hopes Ferraris to finish ahead of Verstappen to bolster his title hopes. “The last few weekends, they’ve been extremely quick and quicker than us, so it’s… I don’t have the confidence to say, yes, we can just beat them on pace. Like today, not on their level,” said Norris, who needs to win the race and hope Ferraris to finish ahead of Verstappen to bolster his title chances. I had definitely nowhere near close to 0.3 seconds left in the car. So it was more that they just went quicker. I was at the limit.”

Verstappen was pleased to secure a front-row start after a challenging Friday, during which he completed only six laps due to an engine issue that left him with “basically no data.”

“We were massively on the back foot,” Verstappen said. “After yesterday, I knew it would be a tough weekend, but we kept making little improvements with the car. “Qualifying felt better and to be on the front row is an incredible result if you look back at yesterday.”