Nico Rosberg will start on pole in Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix after outpacing his Mercedes teammate and newly-crowned three-time world champion Lewis Hamilton in qualifying on Saturday.
Six days after their wheel-banging duel in Texas, where Hamilton won the United States Grand Prix to clinch the title, Rosberg secured his fourth consecutive pole by 0.188sec as Mercedes claimed their 13th front row lockout this year.
It was the 20th pole of Rosberg’s career and continued to leave Hamilton frustrated as the Englishman seeks his 50th pole position. Hamilton has not started from pole since the Italian Grand Prix in early September.
Rosberg clocked a best lap of one minute and 19.480 seconds to outpace Hamilton by 0.188 seconds.
Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff had an easy explanation for Rosberg’s speed.
“Angry…” he said, referring to the 30-year-old German’s tetchy reaction to being pushed off-track by Hamilton on the opening lap last weekend.
That failure to exploit pole and win represented another failure in Rosberg’s current travails as he seeks to improve on just two wins from his last 10 pole positions.
Hamilton, once again, wound up second after making key mistakes on his best laps. He starts ahead of four-time former champion Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari and the two Red Bulls of Russian Daniil Kvyat and Australian Daniel Ricciardo.
Valtteri Bottas was sixth ahead of his Williams team-mate Felipe Massa, Dutch teenager Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso, local hero Mexican Sergio Perez and his Force India teammate Nico Hulkenberg.
GRID:
1st row
Nico Rosberg (GER/Mercedes)
Lewis Hamilton (GBR/Mercedes)
2nd row
Sebastian Vettel (GER/Ferrari)
Daniil Kvyat (RUS/Red Bull)
3rd row
Daniel Ricciardo (AUS/Red Bull)
Valtteri Bottas (FIN/Williams)
4th row
Felipe Massa (BRA/Williams)
Max Verstappen (NED/Toro Rosso)
5th row
Sergio Perez (MEX/Force India)
Nico Hlkenberg (GER/Force India)
6th row
Carlos Sainz Jr (ESP/Toro Rosso)
Romain Grosjean (FRA/Lotus)
7th row
Pastor Maldonado (VEN/Lotus)
Marcus Ericsson (SWE/Sauber)
8th row
Kimi Raikkonen (FIN/Ferrari)
Fernando Alonso (ESP/McLaren)
9th row
Felipe Nasr (BRA/Sauber)
Alexander Rossi (USA/Marussia)
10th row
Will Stevens (GBR/Marussia)
Jenson Button (GBR/McLaren)
