A surprised Charles Leclerc admitted he did not expect his success on Saturday after he secured pole position ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz as Ferrari locked out the front row for Sunday’s Mexico Grand Prix. 

In a chaotic and confusing qualifying session that seemed set to see Max Verstappen on pole again, Ferrari emerged in Q3 with a surge of pace that surprised almost everyone. 

The Monegasque clocked a best lap in one minute and 17.166 seconds to beat the Spaniard by 0.067 seconds, leaving newly-crowned three-time world champion Verstappen third for Red Bull. 

“It’s two weekends in a row where we say that we don’t know if we have the pace,” said Leclerc. “People will start not believing us anymore! To be honest, I did not expect to be on pole today, I thought we were lucky after FP3.

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