Carlos Sainz takes pole in Mexico over Max Verstappen, Lando Norris

MEXICO CITY -- Ferrari's Carlos Sainz outpaced title contenders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris for pole position at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

In a gripping fight between three teams Saturday, a stunning lap of 1:15.946 put Sainz on pole position for the sixth time in his F1 career.

Sainz will look to convert for his second win of the season and to continue Ferrari's momentum after teammate Chares Leclerc led a 1-2 at last week's U.S. Grand Prix.

Sainz said afterwards: "Very happy and a great couple of laps. A lot of times around Mexico you have the feeling that you cannot put a lap together and it's extremely difficult with how much sliding there is, but today my two laps of Q3 were pretty much identical -- almost perfect."

The lap was a comfortable 0.225 seconds clear of championship leader Verstappen, who put himself under pressure when his first run in Q3 was deleted for exceeding track limits.

The Red Bull driver leads Norris by 57 points and has the McLaren starting behind him on a grid that features a long run down to Turn 1.

Verstappen said he was under pressure. "Yesterday, I didn't do a lot of laps, so we are playing a lot of catch-up. FP3 wasn't very good. I was already under pressure to have a good qualifying and then of course my lap time got taken away, so I had a bit more pressure.

"But [I'm] very happy to be on the front row, I honestly didn't expect that to be possible."

Meanwhile, Norris said he's pleased with the second row.

"I'm pretty happy with third, honestly," he said. "I feel like got to the limit of the car quite quickly which made us look good. But I struggled to get a lot more out of it in the final two laps. Carlos and Max did very good laps, especially Carlos all weekend so I'm happy with third."

Leclerc was disappointed with his fourth place for Ferrari. He said the second row was making his life "more difficult" and he was "nowhere in FP2, in FP3" or qualifying.

Two championship-battle dynamics are set to be in play during Sunday's race.

On one hand, Verstappen is looking to keep his healthy lead over Norris, but Ferrari will also sense an opportunity to take a big step forward in the constructors' championships with Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez both starting from the rear end of the field.

Verstappen and Norris opened the door for Ferrari to lead at Turn 1 last week when they got bogged down fighting each other for the lead of the grand prix.

McLaren's Piastri will start 17th, having made a mistake on his lap, while Perez endured a horrible start to his home race, qualifying 18th in the other Red Bull.

"I think the car is very good," Piastri said after qualifying. "Just a shame we have to start from the back tomorrow. We'll try and see what we can do ... but yeah, ironically similar position for Lando last year and he had a good race so there's still opportunities." Last year, Norris started 17th and finished fifth.

Perez later blamed a braking issue he said has been plaguing him for a number of races.

"It's obviously very disappointing," Perez said. "It's a grand prix I want to do really well, it's this one. Unfortunately, it's been really difficult and tricky, this event." 

Mercedes drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton locked out the third row. Russell had crashed out of FP2 on Saturday, leaving the team with a rebuild job. 

Kevin Magnussen was seventh, ahead of Alpine's Pierre Gasly, Williams' Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg in the other Haas.

RB's Yuki Tsunoda triggered the only red flag of the session when he crashed out at the end of Q2, which also eliminated rookie teammate Liam Lawson from the session.

Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll joined Valtteri Bottas as the other drivers eliminated in Q2.

Williams rookie Franco Colapinto did not progress beyond Q1 but finished ahead of both Piastri and Perez. Esteban Ocon and Guanyu Zhou were the others out in that session and will start together on the back row of the grid.