Daniel Ricciardo recorded his best qualifying result in his last five races but even still the Australian admitted it was a “missed opportunity” ahead of Monday’s Mexican Grand Prix.
It was an improvement for Ricciardo, who qualified just 17th for the US Grand Prix — the third time in five races that he failed to pass Q1, where the bottom five drivers are eliminated.
But even still, there was a lingering sense of disappointment for Ricciardo, who was just 0.053s shy of joining the top 10 drivers from Sunday morning’s qualifying session.
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“Missed opportunity for sure,” Ricciardo told Sky Sports.
“I think the first run in Q2 was decent; the lap was kind of there I knew there was a couple tenths on the table in a couple of corners. I felt like it was all coming together nicely.
“There’s so much here with tyre prep and we just didn’t have it on that last run. I felt pretty heavily compromised, I was surprised the lap was quite that close with the prep we had.
“On one hand it’s nice to be competitive but the truth is we missed an opportunity today.”
Ricciardo did add that Sunday’s results were “encouraging”, with McLaren teammate Lando Norris finishing in eighth.
“I think we’ll be alright tomorrow,” he said.
“It’s always tough here on equipment with the altitude, with engines, brakes and everything, a lot of teams have to come here with modifications, so you never know how the race is going to play out. I think we’ll be ok.”
Two-time world champion Max Verstappen secured pole position with a strong late qualifying lap of 1min 17.775sec, finishing 0.304 seconds ahead of George Russell and his Mercedes’ team-mate, seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton.
Local hero Sergio Perez was fourth ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and a resurgent Valtteri Bottas of Alfa Romeo while Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas came in sixth.
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Charles Leclerc, who crashed heavily on Saturday, was seventh in the second Ferrari ahead of Norris and the Alpines of two-time champion Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon.
Russell had been confident of challenging Verstappen and Red Bull for top spot before Sunday’s qualifying and maintained Mercedes is “definitely” capable of taking out the win.
“P2 is a great place to be starting,” Russell told Sky Sports.
“I’m really proud of the job the team has been doing. This is our best qualifying of the year for us, we were quickest in every single session apart from Q3 unfortunately. There’s a lot of promise to take away.
“I believe this weekend we’ve had the fastest car and if you’ve got the fastest car, there’s no reason why you can’t win the race.
“Max did an excellent job today, as he’s consistently doing week in and week out, but it’s going to be very difficult to pass him. They’re gaining about three tenths on us down the straight.
“We definitely can beat Red Bull for sure, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to make the overtake on track. So, we’re going to have to be strategic. I guess having both Lewis and I there, we can be aggressive.”
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