Report: Qualifying complete in Mexico City
Carlos Sainz will start Sunday’s Mexico City GP from P16 after reaching Q2, with Alex Albon P17 after a Q1 exit by a tenth of a second
Published
31 OCT 2026
Est. reading time
3 min
Carlos Sainz will start Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix from P16 after being eliminated in Q2, with Alex Albon just behind in P17 after missing the Q1 cut by 0.111s.
Carlos led Alex out of the garage at the start of Q1 and the pair built up their first runs, with Carlos setting a 1:19.283 and Alex a 1:19.751. The session was red-flagged soon after when Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin ground to a halt in the stadium section, ending his session, and resumed shortly after.
With just 12 drivers having set a representative time before the stoppage, the Williams duo returned on fresh softs and improved to a 1:18.699 for Carlos and a 1:18.905 for Alex, P16 and P17 respectively.
A third set of fresh softs was taken for the final push. Carlos improved to a 1:18.521, which put him P16 and through to Q2. Alex slotted in a tenth behind with a 1:18.630, losing time into yurn 1, and it left him P17 and out of the session.
In Q2, Carlos took four-lap-old softs for his first run, but aborted his next attempt and had to return to the pit lane for a quick turnaround to get back out before time ran out. He went out again on used softs, with 35 seconds to spare before the chequered flag, and set a 1:18.885. It was P16, and he was eliminated alongside a Haas, a McLaren, an Alpine and two Audis.
Earlier on Saturday, FP3 had seen Carlos and Alex start on fresh mediums. Both drivers ran a long first stint on mediums, with Carlos setting a 1:20.002 and Alex a 1:20.159, running P17 and P18 as the session reached its midpoint.
Alex then moved to softs, finding 1.099s for a 1:19.301 and a provisional P13, just 0.058s off Gasly. Carlos followed with a 1:19.214 on softs, with the pair finishing the session in P16 and P17 respectively.
James Vowles, Team Principal:
“It was a great lap from Alex. Because of the yellow flag, we had to push right to the limit, and with the traffic he wasn’t able to get his deployment in the right place and lost out on that lap. Otherwise, that should’ve pulled him through into Q2. It was a great effort from him. Carlos delivered everything the car could, but the gaps are tight. Looking to tomorrow, it’s always entertaining on the run down to Turn 1 here, so as always, head down and we’ll do the best we can.”
Carlos Sainz:
“We had the chance to get the car into Q2 today. We maximised what we had and took our opportunity, so we can be happy with that. Still, I didn’t feel as comfortable compared to yesterday and I was fighting the car a lot more than usual. We’ve been struggling with balance, and we overcorrected slightly with the setup changes we made. We have faster cars in front and behind us tomorrow, so it will be very tricky to get into the points, but we’ll try our best to put on a good show for these fantastic fans!”
Alex Albon:
“It was a good lap, maybe my best of the year, so I’m happy with that. We had a deployment issue into Turn 1 due to traffic in sector three, which cost us about six tenths - we tried to make it up through the rest of the lap but unfortunately, I think this was the difference in making Q2. Our race pace should be good relative to Aston but realistically, we’ve got a gap to the Alpines. Regardless, we'll try to have some fun out there, with the focus being on getting the most out of our car.”
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