Lewis Hamilton concedes third-best to Ferrari and Red Bull in Mexico as Max Verstappen avoids another penalty

Verstappen avoided a second penalty in as many weeks after getting in the way of Valtteri Bottas, meaning he is free to start on the front-row alongside Vettel and ahead of Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton will attempt to win a fourth world championship from third on the grid (Getty)

In F1’s turbo-hybrid era, in which Mercedes have been the dominant team with occasional interventions by Ferrari and Red Bull, it’s been a while since six drivers vied for the honours in practice and qualifying.

So when the last two practice sessions here at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez saw the top six separated by around four-tenths of a second, the auguries for a nail-biting qualifying session looked good.

The track is short, fast – and slippery, thanks to the dark asphalt and the high altitude which means that even maximum downforce here barely matches the low downforce that teams run at superfast circuits such as Monza.

Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas headed the times in Q1 on Pirelli’s softest-compound tyres, the ultrasofts, but the writing was on the wall when Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel were within a tenth on the slower supersofts.

Q2 revealed the true pecking order, as everyone ran the ultrasofts. Verstappen pulled out a sensational lap of 1m 16.524s and as Vettel countered with 1m 16.870s, Hamilton was left rather breathless on 1m 17.035s.

Q3 thus looked certain to be a battle between Verstappen and Vettel, and so it transpired, but the Dutchman’s fears proved correct that attempting single-lap runs would tax his red Bulls ability to generate sufficient tyre temperature.

He aborted his first lap, gong so slowly through the stadium section at the end of it that the following Bottas only just missed his car, and as a result outbraked himself at the next corner and headed for the pits. Verstappen then got a second run, and appeared to have done enough for his first pole position with 1m 16.574s. But on his final run Vettel got everything together to pip him with 1m 16.488s to take the 50th pole of his career.

Hamilton improved to 1m 16.934s and Bottas to 1m 16.958s, but this day the honours belonged to the blue car and the red car, leaving the silver arrows on the second row.

For Vettel, the success was crucial to his fading hopes of taking the title fight right though to Abu Dhabi in November.

“I’m really, really happy with the lap that I had,” He said. “Right now that means more than the raw number of 50 poles.

It’s very easy to make a mistake, and he goes four-tenths quicker than anyone else. How did he do that?

&#13; <p>Sebastian Vettel</p>&#13;

“Max was very quick in Q2; I don’t know where he pulled that one from! It’s very difficult round here, the asphalt is very slippery and it’s very easy to make a mistake, and to understand where the limit is, where you can push and where you can’t, and he goes four-tenths quicker than anyone else. How did he do that?

“But I knew if I got the first sector together I had a better chance. I had a moment in sixth gear and nearly lost the car but I held it together and crossing the line I knew it would be close. When I heard that it was it was like an explosion in the car. Certainly it was better than the one I had yesterday when the fire extinguisher set itself off!”

Sebastian Vettel will start the Mexican Grand Prix ahead of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton (Getty)

A win on Sunday could keep his hopes alive, so long as Hamilton scores fewer than nine points, and there was defiance in his tone as he added: “It’s not as much in my control as I’d like it to be, Lewis is controlling it, but we’ll go all out tomorrow and see. It’s straightforward: do our race, not look at what Lewis or anyone else doing. Let’s see what happens.”

Verstappen admitted that he was “super annoyed”, to miss out on the first pole position of his F1 career.

I was on the inside and he took his line and just locked up, so no incident

Max Verstappen

“In Q3 I gave it my all, I really wanted that pole. In Q2 we were looking very good but somehow in Q3 I couldn’t switch the tyres on. We were doing exactly the same thing as in Q2, but these sets didn’t witch on as well as the sets I had then. It’s really difficult to understand why. I had understeer, and you need to turn the car into the low-speed corners very quickly and that was not happening in Q3. I couldn’t go faster, it was as simple as that. But second is still a good place.”

And the incident with Bottas?

“I was on the inside and he took his line and just locked up, so no incident.”

The stewards agreed, and decided not punish him for impeding the Finn as he was adjudged to have just got out of the way in time.

Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix will be a sell-out (Getty)

Hamilton was quick to shake hands with Vettel and Verstappen, and to admit that they had the better cars. “They did a great job, and were obviously very quick. I gave it all I could, but we just weren’t quick enough today.”

But Mercedes’ long-run pace has been very promising all weekend, and he is optimistic of improving from third on the grid on the long run down to the first corner. He is adamant that he will still be going for the win, even though fifth place will be enough to secure his fourth crown.

“Our long-run pace has been better than our qualifying pace. I’m not worried about that, but you need a big delta – nearly 1.3s a lap over the car in front – in order to overtake. So that’s very difficult here and positioning is very important. It’s a long way down to Turn 1, so I hope to improve my position by the time we get there. We should have some fun tomorrow…”

Following the controversy arising from Verstappen being penalised from third to fourth place by the stewards after last week’s US GP, the FIA have tightened the rules on track limits here.

Vettel must win the race and hope Hamilton scores fewer than nine points (Getty)

Some kerbs have been changed since last year’s race, in which Verstappen was penalised out of the final podium slot for using too much road, only for his replacement, Vettel, to suffer the same thing after the podium, handing the pace finally to Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.

Drivers have now been warned that if they run wide after Turn 10, they will have to drive between two marker points at Turn 11 which are specifically designed to slow them down.

F1 race director Charlie Whiting circulated a directive to all teams on Saturday morning which said: "For safety reasons, any driver whose car passes completely behind the kerb on the apex of Turn 11 must rejoin the track by keeping wholly to the right of the new block and then wholly to the left of the orange kerb parallel to the track on the exit of the corner."