Bottas brings abrupt end to Mexico qualifying

Mark Scott

Valtteri Bottas’ crash at the end of Q3 brought out the yellow flags and confirmed pole position for Max Verstappen in Mexico.

Here is how qualifying day unfolded in Mexico…

There is a nasty bug going around in Mexico City with an estimated 150 team members affected. Will something like this make even Dr Helmut Marko sympathetic?  Course not!

A damp track awaited the drivers for FP3, with the chance of more rain arriving during qualifying.

And, just to add to Daniel Ricciardo’s frustrations…

Daniel Ricciardo wasn’t the only one waiting…sensor issues kept Sebastian Vettel in the Ferrari garage.

Meanwhile, things went from bad to worse for Renault…

An ill Pierre Gasly did make his return to the track before FP3 ended, with the action hotting up as the track became drier.

Sitting pretty at the top heading into qualifying was Ferrari, with Charles Leclerc leading Sebastian Vettel by 0.027 seconds.

It was Red Bull who ended Q1 in a one-two position with Max Verstappen two tenths ahead of Alex Albon.

Lance Stroll, Kevin Magnussen, Romain Grosjean, George Russell and Robert Kubica meanwhile were the drivers eliminated.

That became a Mercedes one-two as Hamilton finished P1 ahead of Bottas in Q2 – both drivers committed to the medium compound for the race start. The Ferraris backed off on their soft-tyre run to join them.

Sergio Perez, Nico Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi missed out on the pole position shootout.

The top six were all in with a shout of pole before Bottas pushed too hard on his final run and slammed into the barriers.

The Finn fortunately was okay, but the yellow flags forced everyone to abort their flying laps, meaning Verstappen was on pole for the Mexican Grand Prix.

Follow all the action from the Mexican Grand Prix with the PlanetF1 live centre

Valtteri Bottas

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