What decided Mexico pole fight before final laps even started

Lewis Hamilton said over the team radio after qualifying as he returned to the pits that his first pole position for Ferrari had been “such a long time coming”.

But after a year where Ferrari had too often failed to turn promising pace into a hard result on Saturday, the reason behind him and Ferrari finally delivering was an interesting one.

The key to the breakthrough was not a major aerodynamic update, nor a track layout that especially offered Ferrari any more of an advantage than it has had at other venues.

Instead, the answer was all about what was done before the final qualifying laps had even begun.

As Ferrari has found on too many occasions, it's been a struggle to get the car's tyres in the right operating window for qualifying.

The SF-26 is known to be easy on its rubber, which pays dividends in races when you want to keep tyres cool. But it can make it more of a challenge in qualifying when you want to fire tyres up quickly.

The challenge for qualifying is also about ensuring the temperatures are well balanced across both axles – so that you haven’t gone so aggressive that the fronts are sorted but then the rears are too hot.

“More often than not, you're like, 'the front tyre is not in for Turn 1, but the rears are'," said Hamilton.

“Then the fronts start coming in and the rears start going off. It's this constant seesaw you're having. Then sometimes the rears aren't ready as you come out of the last corner to start the lap, but then at the end they're better. Sometimes they're too ready.

“So, trying to find that balance, I'm telling you, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. And honestly, it's been very, very, very tricky to find.”

In Mexico however, finding that needle was the difference between him and team-mate Charles Leclerc – as it was about firing the tyres up enough for the start of the lap, without the rubber then overheating too much for the critical final sector.

Hamilton’s approach on the outlap was very methodical. Given a countdown by his engineer as he emerged slowly out of the pits before accelerating, slowing and then accelerating again, Hamilton weaved aggressively on the straights early in the prep lap – but tiptoed around the corners.

His first flying lap was not ideal, as his tyres did not seem in the perfect window in the first sequence. He started losing time from Turn 2 – and then fell back further through Turns 4-6 and then Turn 11.

For his second outlap, Hamilton was much more aggressive coming out of the pits and used much more throttle on each of the straights. He was also a bit more cautious in the stadium section before starting the lap.

The end result appears to have been a slightly different tyre balance where it wasn't as good through the opening corners – as he was around 0.150 seconds off his earlier efforts coming off Turn 3.

But after that, better acceleration on the run down to Turn 4 drew him equal and the tyres were in their perfect window as he finished the lap with enough to take pole.

While not offering any specific details on what he did to make the difference, Hamilton said he had had to call upon all his experience.

“I think I was able to utilise a couple more tools that I've not used for like 13 years,” he said.

“I just got the tyres in the perfect window on that out-lap. Once I was through Turns 1, 2 and 3, it was kind of smooth from there, and I just don't think I lost any time anywhere, to be honest.”

Leclerc angry at himself

The perfect outlap was something that team-mate Charles Leclerc failed to nail, as he was left clearly annoyed afterwards about having thrown away a good opportunity as he ended up third on the grid.

His first run in Q3, which had given him the provisional top spot, had come after he had expressed a bit of annoyance about Hamilton ahead of him having come out of the pits so slowly before accelerating.

“What the hell is he doing?” asked Leclerc over the team radio who had to brake on the straight at one point.

For the second run, Leclerc gave himself a bit of distance to his team-mate to not get caught out with a slow run down to Turn 1 to fire the tyres up.

His second preparation lap was much more aggressive – he ran into Turn 1 at more than 270km/h compared to around 230km/h when behind Hamilton. He was equally quicker through the first sequence of corners and up to Turn 4.

The preparation was clean and it seemed he had got the tyres well fired up for the start of the lap. He was 0.150 seconds up through the first sequence of corners, and a tenth up coming out of Turn 6.

But the lap fell away then as he lost a bunch of time between Turns 6 and 7 - suggesting the rears were getting hot and losing traction.

He regained a bit going super aggressive through the Turn 9/10/11 sequence, which triggered a slide, but that seemed to overheat his rubber even more – meaning all his advantage bled away from the stadium.

Leclerc knew he had blown it as he lambasted the “very shit lap” over the team radio afterwards, as well as the impact of a car that was “quite a bit different with a normal lap”.

He also suggested he was “really pissed “ with how things had been managed.

Speaking in the post-qualifying press conference, Leclerc did not make any further reference to what he was annoyed about – as he instead made clear he was more angry with himself.

“I just didn't do a good enough job,” he said. “Yes, tyre preparation is quite key. I kind of struggled to have the same conditions for my out-lap throughout the qualifying.

“But at the end of the day, when I had a clean out-lap in Q3, run two, I didn't do the job. So I can only be angry with myself.”

Russell lacking answers for pace

There was perhaps no better example of the gains that came from good preparation and perfect execution than George Russell, who baffled himself with a lap that came within 0.009 seconds of pole position to take second on the grid.

Russell has not felt comfortable with the upgraded Mercedes all weekend, and things had not looked good throughout early qualifying as his squad went for a double prep lap approach.

With that not working, Russell opted to switch tactics and go straight on the attack for his final run – and it unleashed pace that even he was at a loss to explain.

“It's a little bit of a story of my season,” he said. “I think this kind of feels like I've never done an average lap. It's either a terrible lap or a very strong lap, and this is quite frustrating.

“I don't think there was a single lap this whole weekend ahead of Q3 that I looked in the mix to even fight for the top three, let alone pole position. But that last lap just came together really nicely. I'd love to know exactly why, but I don't have those answers.”

It also left Russell rueing the smallest of details. Having been fuelled for a double prep lap, the Mercedes was carrying more load than needed – and that extra weight likely would have cost more than the 0.009 deficit he ended up losing pole by.

“You always think retrospectively, if only we had the one lap of fuel rather than the extra lap of fuel that we had, we could have been on pole,” he said.

As Hamilton showed in pulling off pole, such small details can be critical – even before the qualifying lap has even started.