Ricciardo on POLE for Red Bull at Mexican Grand Prix – Hamilton third

Daniel Ricciardo is on pole for the 2018 Mexican Grand Prix, narrowly ahead of team mate Verstappen for a Red Bull front row. Hamilton starts third.

Lewis Hamilton only needs to finish seventh at the Mexican Grand Prix to clinch his fifth world title, so he’s probably not going to be too disappointing that qualifying for the race sees him start behind the two Red Bulls, with Ricciardo on pole and Verstappen alongside.

The high altitude of the race reduces the power deficit of the Renault engine in the Red Bull, and Red Bull’s maximum downforce setup saw off not just Hamilton, but Vettel’s Ferrari which starts alongside Hamilton in fourth place.

But it was a close call between Ricciardo and Verstappen for pole, with the Australian – desperate to take a win before he leaves Red Bull at the end of the season – beating his young team mate to pole by just 0.026 seconds and giving himself a fighting chance of his first win since Monaco.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle for Ricciardo is the long drag to the first corner, and negotiating it without clashing with Verstappen, as well as the urgency Vettel will feel to move up from his fourth place grid start to take a race he has to win to stay in the title race.

Bottas and Raikkonen make up the top six starters, with Hulkenberg, Sainz, Leclerc and Ericsson the best of the rest, with Alonso managing 12th and Vandoorne 16th for McLaren. The Williams cars start at the back of the grid.