Title rivals Max Verstappen and Lando Norris start Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix from second and third on the grid behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
Verstappen heads into the race 57 points clear of Norris, who needs to gain on the Red Bull driver by an average of just under 12 points a race to overtake him in the remaining five grands prix.
Norris qualified his McLaren just 0.089 seconds slower than Verstappen, but Sainz was in a league of his own, on pole by 0.225secs from the Dutchman to underline Ferrari’s surge in form over the last few races.
The second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, dominant winner of the United States Grand Prix last weekend, starts fourth, ahead of the Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
The top four are all focused on the run to the first corner, the longest of the season, on which the powerful slipstream effect can give the advantage to the drivers in second and third on the grid.
The winner of this race has come from third on the grid – Norris’ position – in three of the last four races.
Sainz, who took his first pole since Singapore 2023 and for whom both laps in final qualifying were good enough to start at the front, said: “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.
“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.”
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 said: “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.
“I had definitely nowhere near close to 0.3secs left in the car. So it was more that they just went quicker. I was at the limit.”