For much of the weekend in Mexico City, Red Bull had the upper-hand on Mercedes, with the gap reaching a whopping 0.65s in favour of the Milton Keynes outfit in the final practice session before qualifying. But as proceedings reached a critical stage in qualifying, it was Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas, who led the way, with the Finn taking pole ahead of his teammate Hamilton. The Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez endured a difficult session, with concerns regarding the rear wing on both of its cars hanging over them throughout the qualifying hour.  

Speaking after qualifying, Hamilton was somewhat surprised with the fact his team had just grabbed the front row for themselves for Sunday, admitting he was "shocked" as much as everyon else with the end result of Saturday’s action:

"They were like six-tenths ahead at some stage, and then four-tenths ahead. But whatever happened, once we got to qualifying, all of a sudden, we had better pace.

"I'm just as shocked as everyone. But we'll still take it,” the Briton concluded.

Even though Mercedes as a team enjoyed a good session overall, Hamilton would’ve hoped to lead the team’s charge on Saturday, but ended up playing second fiddle to his teammate. And he explains changes made in his car between FP3 and qualifying were at the core of his struggles:

"I was quite happy with the car in [FP3], and we’ve just made some small tweaks, and in qualifying it was, really, not nice to drive. That’s frustrating, because you work so hard [with the engineers].

"Maybe I need to spend less time in engineering [meetings], because probably it seems to make it worse (laughs).

"I just struggled out there, all of a sudden the car – I had a lot of lock-ups, so I had to make a lot of changes on my steering wheel, which I haven’t had to all weekend."

But the Briton acknowledged the “amazing job” of Valtteri Bottas, as the Finn claimed the 19th pole of his career on Saturday at Mexico City:

"Valtteri did an amazing job. He's been driving so well in the last few races.

"It's really great for the team. They've been working so hard," Hamilton concluded.

This moment. 💙💜 #MexicoGP pic.twitter.com/nR8UjFjdNz

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) November 6, 2021

The Brackley outfit showed excellent speed in qualifying, on a circuit Red Bull were widely expected to control proceedings. Hamilton hailed his team, saying it is “pretty special” that they secured a 1-2 on a notably difficult circuit for Mercedes over the years, and looks ahead to a good fight for the top spots on Sunday, at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez:  

"We didn't think we had the pace this weekend. So to lock out the front row is pretty special, and obviously gives us a good fight with the others tomorrow."