You’ll have struggled to search out anybody within the F1 paddock prepared to foretell an all-Mercedes entrance row forward of Saturday afternoon’s session, but that is what we’ll have for Sunday’s race. What’s extra, it will likely be Hamilton’s teammate, Valtteri Bottas, who will begin on pole place, creating the potential for one more workforce orders debate on Sunday afternoon.

However earlier than we get forward of ourselves, what went incorrect for Purple Bull?

‘Getting Tsunoda’d’

Instantly after qualifying, Purple Bull’s administration blamed AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda for Verstappen lacking out on pole place. Tsunoda, who’s contracted to Purple Bull and drives for its junior workforce, discovered himself on the incorrect a part of the observe on the incorrect time, compromising the ultimate qualifying laps of Sergio Pérez and Verstappen.

In a standard Q3 session, Tsuonda would have been on a quick lap of his personal and due to this fact too far down the highway to bother the Purple Bulls, however a grid penalty for an engine change initially of the weekend meant his goal within the session was relatively totally different. As a result of he was destined to start out from the again of the grid no matter his lap time, he had been despatched out on observe solely to provide his AlphaTauri teammate, Pierre Gasly, a slipstream on the pit straight.

Having accomplished his job — Gasly went on to safe fifth on the grid due to the tow — Tsunoda was on his approach again to the pits, however simply so occurred to finish up within the high-speed second sector of the lap concurrently the Purple Bull drivers. Though his AlphaTauri was approach off the racing line as Perez closed in on him, his presence and the mud he threw up unsettled the Purple Bull in Flip 10 and compelled the Mexican into an error.

Verstappen, who was behind Perez, thought he was approaching an accident as Perez left the highway in entrance of him and backed off the throttle accordingly, ruining his personal lap.

“I feel we acquired Tsunoda’d,” Purple Bull workforce principal Christian Horner mentioned. “Each drivers had been up on their final lap. Max was up two and a half tenths, I feel Checo was slightly below two-tenths up and I do not perceive why he was simply cruising round at that a part of the circuit.

“It is disappointing as a result of it affected each the drivers and they’re each fairly irritated. However we’re nonetheless second row of the grid and may have an awesome race from there.”

Talking to the media after the session, Perez added: “I used to be irritated as a result of in Q3 he should not be there. However it’s what it’s.”

To be honest to Tsunoda, there wasn’t far more he might have carried out to get out of the best way of the Purple Bull drivers. He drove utterly off the circuit to make approach for Perez and the actual fact there was no investigation by the stewards into whether or not he blocked Perez tells you the whole lot you want to find out about whether or not he was within the incorrect.

Talking to media after getting out of his automobile, Tsuonda appeared oblivious to Purple Bull’s frustration.

“I did not mess up the Purple Bull — it was only a mistake by themselves,” he mentioned.

“I do not find out about Max? Did I maintain up Max as nicely?” he requested his press officer because it dawned on him he may be in bother together with his bosses.

As soon as he was proven a video of the incident, he was nonetheless shocked to listen to blame was being directed at him.

“I went exterior [the track limits] and I could not do something greater than that. I imply, I do not know, the place ought to I am going?

“I had a countdown [from my engineer about the closing speed of the Red Bulls], however I used to be within the sector two.

“I do not know. If I had one other probability, I might do the identical factor. I do not know, what ought to I do?”

Mercedes hits again

Blaming Tsunoda additionally ignores the truth that Purple Bull merely wasn’t fast sufficient to beat Mercedes when it mattered in Q3.

The 0.2s time benefit Horner claims each his drivers had discovered previous to the incident would nonetheless have been in need of the 0.350s enchancment Verstappen wanted to beat Bottas to pole and the 0.467s margin Perez wanted.

Maybe Verstappen and Perez would have discovered much more time within the remaining sector, however should you calculate Verstappen’s theoretical greatest lap — primarily based on including all his greatest sector instances collectively — he would nonetheless have fallen in need of Bottas by over a tenth of a second and been shy of Hamilton by a few hundredths.

So the place did Mercedes’ tempo come from?

“We had been all shocked,” Mercedes workforce boss Toto Wolff mentioned. “It appeared fairly apparent that Max would take pole, and that it will be a battle between us and Checo [Perez] for the opposite positions, after which we might see that qualifying actually got here in direction of us.

“On the medium [tyre in Q2], we began actually to outperform them, and at no level in Q3 did they’ve a lead on any of the laps. Additionally I consider that within the final lap [before they came across Tsunoda], they had been behind.

“So yeah, that makes the game for me so fascinating, that from one session to the opposite, efficiency can swing, and we have seen it to our detriment in Austin, and now it has occurred to our benefit right here in Mexico.”

Horner believes Mercedes discovered a few of its surprising qualifying tempo by fixing the turbo-related points it suffered with in Mexico’s excessive altitude in earlier years, which means the belief that Purple Bull was the favorite going into qualifying was maybe misplaced.

“They had been very fast, very fast,” he mentioned. “I feel we might see yesterday that their engine, they’ve addressed the problems that that they had beforehand right here. So that they’ve clearly managed to deal with that.

“I feel we underperformed in Q3, however it’s nonetheless very, very tight. I feel within the race tomorrow, once more it’ll be very tight. They’ve simply acquired a great straightline pace right here, which goes to be powerful.”

Wolff confirmed some “tuning” of the engine had unlocked extra efficiency this yr.

“Yeah we have now optimised it for these circumstances,” he mentioned. “On the finish, you are attempting to extract energy unit efficiency all through the calendar, and the outliers are in some way troublesome to take account for.

“But it surely’s extra a tuning query. It is not that we have put the engine the other way up. It is simply we higher perceive why it did not carry out in excessive altitude.”

In the meantime, Verstappen regarded to points together with his personal automobile, relatively than Tsunoda or Mercedes’ engine positive aspects, as the rationale why he’ll line up third on the grid tomorrow.

“I simply suppose we had been actually gradual and had horrible grip in Q3,” he mentioned. “I feel my final lap, we recovered it just a little bit by getting the tyres into just a little little bit of a greater window, however we had been nonetheless not what we’d have preferred and the way the automobile was behaving in all of the apply periods.

“In order that was a little bit of a thriller. However then tomorrow we perhaps race on totally different tyres anyway so I anticipate the stability to be good once more.”

Ways and workforce orders

The race is about to be fascinating, with Bottas beginning forward of Hamilton and the 2 Purple Bulls tucked in behind. The long term from the grid to Flip 1 usually ends in drivers beginning additional again benefiting from a slipstream, though there’s nonetheless little doubt you’d relatively be ranging from the entrance row than the second.

The grid order additionally raises the query of whether or not Mercedes will use workforce orders if Bottas retains his lead over Hamilton on the finish of the primary lap. Previous to the weekend, all of the discuss was about whether or not Purple Bull would deprive Perez of a house win if he was forward of Verstappen, however on Saturday night time the identical query was being requested of Wolff and Mercedes.

“I am a racer, and I really feel that such dialogue is one thing that’s all the time simply disappointing in a approach, however typically the circumstances oblige that,” Wolff mentioned in response.

“However we are going to handle it and focus on it first with Valtteri and Lewis, as a result of they’re each concerned in such discussions. After which we are going to see whether or not the race state of affairs really obliges us to make any such name.”