Fuel if you think it's over? The fine lines that cost Russell pole position in Mexico

As Lewis Hamilton basked in his first pole position since Hungary 2023, and his first pole for Ferrari, George Russell and Max Verstappen were left to lament what might have been.

For Russell, it was a case of working through an emotional checklist to calculate whether he should be delighted at finding half a second between his first and second runs to outqualify Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli, or despondent at missing out on pole by 0.009s. Verstappen, meanwhile, will start fifth on the grid thanks to a combination of a one-place penalty for a contretemps with Liam Lawson in practice, and having to bail out of a final Q3 run in which he was in contention for pole until the final sector.

In cooling conditions as the clouds rolled in over the sprawling Mexican capital, exploiting Pirelli's occasionally capricious C5 soft tyre was the key to success. It was a delicate balance in terms of building heat through the carcass, given the tendency of the slippery track to induce slides which generated spikes in surface temperature. For some drivers, an out-lap plus a prep lap worked; for others, a hard out-lap did the job.

Russell, having observed the Ferraris and Verstappen going for it after their out-laps, then decided to do the same on his final run – although Mercedes, believing a prep lap would be the optimal solution, had fuelled the car accordingly. That would work out at around 1.5kg of additional weight, so perhaps costing him in the region of slightly more than a tenth of a second.

"I saw Lewis and Charles and Max as well," Russell said in the post-qualifying press conference.

"They weren't doing the prep lap. We were doing prep laps, just getting the temperature into the tyre. It's quite challenging. My gut told me we could do it on lap one without the preparation, but the team wanted to do the prep, so we ended up carrying the fuel for an extra lap.

"It's such a small number, but it's bigger than the gap to pole. So, it's obviously... 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. But, you know, I'm very grateful to be in this position because it's been a tough run."

Fine lines between Hamilton and Russell

Lewis Hamilton vs George Russell data

Comparing Hamilton (red trace in our graph) and Russell (light blue trace) first, our data analysis shows how close it was between the Ferrari and the Mercedes throughout the lap. Despite lifting off fractionally earlier into Turn 1, Russell carried more speed to the apex and was transiently around two tenths up until the exit of Turn 3, wherein the Ferrari out-accelerated him as Hamilton was able to pick up the throttle earlier. This could be in the noise of electrical deployment, or turbo inertia – or it could be the Merc's additional weight. On the run towards Turn 4 at the end of the first sector, Lewis was 0.025s up.

Again, though, Russell was able to carry more speed towards the apex of Turn 4, inverting the delta fractionally before Hamilton again picked up the throttle more aggressively at the exit of Turn 5. The pattern then repeated itself into Turns 6 and 7: Russell faster in, Hamilton quicker out. But Hamilton's advantage was rarely over a tenth of a second.

The Ferrari was then quicker through the initial sweepers around the back of the circuit but Russell clawed it back between Turn 9 and the tighter right-hander at Turn 10. This is an area where it doesn't pay to be greedy, because carrying too much speed can send you slithering wide and breaching track limits, but again Russell had more apex speed while Hamilton enjoyed a cleaner exit.

"I knew all weekend that I had the pace to be on pole, but these sessions were just up and down" Lewis Hamilton

On the second portion of the back straight, though, on this freshly resurfaced portion of asphalt, the Mercedes began to match and then exceed the Ferrari's top speed. Russell was just 0.003s down at the end of the second sector.

In sector three, the run towards Turn 12, the Merc's top speed peaked at 7km/h faster than the Ferrari's, Hamilton scrubbing off more speed as he overlapped throttle and brake into the corner to help his SF-26 pivot, while Russell followed the more standard approach of getting out of the throttle before hitting the anchors. Once more, that enabled him to carry more apex speed but Hamilton had his car straighter at the exit and could pick up the throttle much earlier.

The gap remained within milliseconds as Hamilton scrubbed off fractionally more speed into Turn 13, then opened up again as Lewis needed to feather the throttle to a lesser extent through the right-hander at Turn 14. Hitting the brakes later into Turn 16 then enabled Russell to invert the delta in his favour again but Hamilton was able to roll onto the throttle more aggressively at the exit to turn the tables, maintaining that advantage to the line.

"I knew all weekend that I had the pace to be on pole, but these sessions were just up and down," said Hamilton. 

Lewis Hamilton vs George Russell Speed delta

"Obviously, Charles [Leclerc, who qualified third] was very, very quick. I think the key is getting the tyres working. You see us all go out and it looks like we're doing okay, but the tyres operate in a very small window where they're good, and then they overheat. I'm really perfecting that. That's been something I've really struggled with, I would say, probably the last few years, particularly as we went to the 18-inch tyre.

"So just learning to drive differently. It's a bit of a different skill set, or just a different way you have to drive and approach these corners, and it requires a different type of balance usage. So, I think I was able to utilise a couple more tools that I've not used for 13 years. 

"And then I think, just there, as I said, 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. So, it was just an overall good lap, but I know these guys are super close."

What about Verstappen?

Max’s first Q3 lap was just 0.178s off the final pole time, but he was going even faster on his second run – he was fastest through the first sector by 0.067s and set a personal best in the second – until it came unglued in the stadium section. Max had to thread his way past Lando Norris and Isack Hadjar and, while both did their best to keep out of his way, Norris was inconveniently placed on the right-hand side of the track, forcing Verstappen to attack Turn 13 at a tighter angle than he would have preferred.

This is the left-hander which doubles back on itself before the right-handed Turn 14, almost a mini-hairpin rather than a chicane, and it rewards a wide entry with a late apex so as to get a straighter line into Turn 14. Verstappen locked his front-left wheel as a consequence and, though he lit up his rear wheels under acceleration out of Turn 14 as he tried to ameliorate the loss, he bailed out of the lap and lifted off before the line.

"I arrived to Turn 12 and I see a car slow in front of me, so that's already where you then lose time with the dirty air," Verstappen said afterwards.

"And then I see also the car [Norris] parking on the right, which in that corner you don't want, because I arrive to Turn 13 already doing a bit of a different line, you lose your reference, because you always have your references where you brake, and there's a car, so you cannot see it. 

"When you are on the limit in qualifying and you lose all these kind of things, and the angle of the car is a bit different, that makes you lock-up."

"For me, the grip [through qualifying] only got better, I mean, my grip was awful in practice, so it only got better for me in qualifying. So there was not much to complain about. 

"We were in the fight for pole, my final lap was up there for pole, for sure, but unfortunately we couldn't finish the lap."

Can Hamilton turn his pole into victory?

Photo by: James Sutton / LAT Images via Getty Images