Norris: Seeing the result, I was pleasantly surprised.

      Lando Norris won qualifying in Mexico — it’s his fifth pole of the season and his first in exactly three months, since the Belgian round of the championship. His McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, could not get higher than eighth on the grid.

      Lando Norris (1st): “I’m very happy to be back on pole! It really lifts the mood, because I haven’t won a qualifying session in a long time. It was one of those laps where you don’t really know what’s happening. It felt like things were coming together pretty well, but when I crossed the line and saw the result I was pleasantly surprised.

      “Honestly, I’ve been in a good frame of mind since the start of the weekend, and especially today things went well from session to session. Towards the end I got a bit nervous because of Ferrari’s speed in the final part of qualifying, but I managed to put together an excellent lap when it mattered, and that’s a great reason to be happy.

      “I’ve generally done pretty well at this track in the past, so I’ll try to focus on the aspects of tomorrow’s race that I can control — I can’t influence the rest. I’m determined to fight for the win and will be looking only forward.

      “I know there are fast guys starting behind me, and the run to turn 1 here is very long. I also understand that Ferrari are usually capable of very strong race pace, so I expect we’ll have to battle them. I don’t expect it to be easy, but I’m in a fighting mood, so let’s see what we can achieve.”

      Oscar Piastri (8th): “Overall I’m okay, it’s just that we didn’t have the pace, and that’s a bit puzzling. Throughout the weekend the deficit has stayed roughly the same, so we need to check everything and find out what went wrong. Although, of course, it’s a little frustrating.

      “We didn’t make any particular setup changes, but simply this weekend and at the previous round we haven’t been able to find the pace we need, and I don’t yet know why. So we need to keep working on it.

      “In tomorrow’s race I’ll try to do everything I can; the start will be an opportunity to make up positions, but we’ll see what we can do.”