Oscar Piastri has conceded the error that saw him eliminated from Q1 for Formula 1’s Mexican Grand Prix was a “very poor mistake”.

The McLaren driver went off the track at Turn 12 in the opening phase of qualifying, with his car bottoming out over the kerbs. His lap time was deleted for crossing the track limits, but the time he lost by getting out of shape would not have been good enough to secure a spot in Q2 anyway.

Up until that point the Australian had been over a second up on his previous best, leaving him to rue the error that saw him dumped out of Q1 for the first time this season.

“I just went off in the Turn 12, got beached on the kerb there, and that was it,” Piastri told Sky Sports F1. “My lap was easily going to be enough, so it’s very frustrating to make that mistake. I lost about a second.

“It’s just a tricky circuit but I don’t think today was down to it being tricky. It was just I made a very poor mistake, and that was it.”

Oscar Piastri, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Piastri’s Q1 exit mirrors team-mate Lando Norris‘ last year, when Norris saw his best lap deleted for track limits and was forced to start from the back of the field.

Despite qualifying 19th – and starting from 17th due to grid penalties for others – Norris moved up to finish fifth in the race, with Piastri hoping to emulate his team-mate on Sunday afternoon.

“We had a similar kind of position for Lando last year,” Piastri added. “So I’ll make sure I do my homework on how he went through the field and try and do the same.”

Piastri will be joined at the rear of the field by home hero Sergio Perez, who was eliminated in 18th. Perez is facing a similar comeback race in front of his ardent Mexican fans on another challenging weekend for the under-pressure Red Bull man.

Driving the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, Austin Hill ran down Cole Custer and easily passed the reigning series champion for the lead with just 12 laps to go at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

After passing Custer, Hill drove off with the race win in hand. This will be his first ever appearance in the Championship 4, causing him to become emotional on the radio after taking the checkered flag. This victory is Hill’s fourth of the year and the tenth of his Xfinity career.

“I work so hard at this,” said Hill after the race. “A lot of people doubt me but I wake up everyday to prove everyone wrong. I deserve to be here. I deserve to race for a championship. This No. 21 team deserves it just as much as I do.

“They worked their asses off each and every day just like I do.I have to give it up to those guys. They gave me a hell of a car. I didn’t have to go run the wall. I could run wherever I wanted to … Oh my God, I am out of breath. I can honestly say I’ve never cried coming to the start/finish line — I couldn’t even get my emotions together getting into Turn 1 after the checkered. All the hard work and dedication that goes into this. I don’t think anyone is going to understand what this means to me (and) my family.”

The run to the finish

After the final round of green-flag pit stops with about 40 laps to go, A.J. Allmendinger was actually in control of the race. He was already locked into the final four via his Las Vegas win last weekend, so he chose to gamble for a late caution while saving his final set of tires. Kaulig Racing teammate Shane van Gisbergen and JR Motorsports’ Brandon Jones did the same.

Once Allmendinger finally pitted from the lead with 20 laps to go, Custer regained control of the race. However, it was short-lived as Hill rapidly closed in, making the move to the outside and snatching the lead away.

Custer ended the race three seconds behind Hill with Aric Almirola, Jesse Love and Sheldon Creed rounding out the top-five. Riley Herbst, Ryan Sieg, Justin Allgaier, Sam Mayer, and Allmendinger filled out the rest of the top-ten.

Van Gisbergen was the only driver to never use their final set of tires, stretching the fuel to the very end in hopes of a caution that never came and finishing 17th. 

Heading into the Round of 8 elimination race at Martinsville, the following drivers are below the cut-line: Chandler Smith (-28 points), Jesse Love (-35 points), Sam Mayer (-47 points), and Sammy Smith (-95 points).

Allgaier is 35 points above the cut-line and Custer is 28 after their showings at Homestead.

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McLaren team principal Andrea Stella reckons the team’s execution let it down in Mexico Grand Prix qualifying and felt pole was possible.

But Lando Norris, who was quickest in both Q1 and Q2, suggested he had hit the limit of potential in his car.

He was unable to hit the ground running at the start of Q3 and was only fifth fastest at the end of the opening runs before improving on his follow-up effort, which earned him third on the grid.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Stella felt that performance was ‘left behind’ in qualifying, also noting Oscar Piastri’s mistake at Turn 12 that consigned him to a surprising Q1 exit having headlined FP3 earlier on Saturday.

“Overall I would say the car during this qualifying session was competitive, and was in a condition to score the pole position, even though Carlos in the final session kind of raised the bar quite a bit,” said Stella.

“If we take the natural progression, then with Lando we might have been there. But we have to say that the two laps in Q3, they weren’t great.

“In the first one, there were a couple of mistakes – these overheated the tyres and then the tyres were going away from Lando.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“In the second one, it wasn’t very clean, but it was important to make sure that it was decent enough to be there in the first or the second row.

“So we’re all encouraged that the car was performing well, but at the same time, from an execution point of view, we left a little bit of performance behind, especially with Oscar in Q1, where he had the lap time deleted and he missed it.

“We have quite a lot of work ahead of us to get back in the points.”

Norris did not necessarily agree with Stella’s assessment and explained: “I was at the limit.

“I couldn’t go any quicker, it’s more I think the others just didn’t get the most out of it. Pretty much every corner I was close to locking up and making mistakes, and I did that in my Q3 run one lap.

“But I definitely had nowhere near close to three-tenths left in the car. So it was more that they just went quicker.

“I got everything out of the car already in Q1 and Q2 and made us look like the ones to beat. But honestly, since FP1 Ferrari have been the guys to beat, and Carlos is on top today, so it’ll be challenging to beat them tomorrow.”

Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Speaking later to Sky, Norris explained that he had to drive with restraint to get a decent qualifying time out of the car in Q3, although he noted that this still wasn’t particularly clean.

He conceded that making a play for the lead into the first corner might be his best chance of beating the Ferraris on race pace on Sunday.

“I struggled to get much more out of the car in the final two laps. I tried in Q3, round one, but it clearly didn’t work. So I just had to drive much more under the limit in the second run.

“I’m happy. I think we just have not had the pace of the Ferrari all weekend. Maybe we could have had Max, but he did a good lap; mine was not as clean as maybe I would have liked. I just wanted to get a good-ish lap in.

“I think turn one, lap one will be our best opportunity [to win the race]. But Ferrari are just doing things well at the minute.”

Carlos Sainz scorched to pole for the Mexican Grand Prix with a 0.225-second advantage over Formula 1 championship leader Max Verstappen.

Sainz was in imperious form throughout the session and found two times good enough for pole – opening his Q3 run with a 1m16.055s and improving on his final run to a 1m15.946s to line up at the front of Sunday’s grid.

Verstappen rescued a front-row start after losing his first Q3 lap to track limits having cut both parts of the Turn 2/3 chicane, and set a 1m16.171s on his final attempt to qualify ahead of championship rival Lando Norris.

Norris’ first lap was comparatively poor and was only fifth at the end of the opening runs, but found improvement on his final tour to head the second row alongside Charles Leclerc.

The Monegasque saved a snap through the high-speed corners and managed to collect fourth, albeit three tenths down on his team-mate.

The two Mercedes drivers occupied the third row, as George Russell outqualified Lewis Hamilton as the younger Briton improved more on the final tour. They were ahead of an impressive Kevin Magnussen, who parked his car seventh on the grid over Pierre Gasly.

Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg were ninth and 10th, the German having overcooked it on the exit of Turn 12 on his last lap to lose a chance at moving further up the grid.

Yuki Tsunoda was the master of his own Q2 elimination after putting his RB in the wall ahead the Foro Sol section while on a flying lap, causing a red flag with a crash at Turn 12.

This also denied his team-mate Liam Lawson the chance to progress, as the two looked set to improve and challenge Gasly’s 10th-fastest lap.

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were both starting their final flying laps before the session was stopped and were subsequently eliminated, while Valtteri Bottas was also denied the chance to break out of Q2 in the wake of the incident.

Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez were the big scalps taken in Q1; the Australian failed to reclaim his FP3-topping form and also failed to progress into the second phase of qualifying – making his life more difficult by losing a lap for track limits. H

He reckoned that had he not gone beyond the Turn 12 kerb and lost a second in the process, he would have made it through.

Perez was dumped out at the first hurdle of qualifying for his home grand prix having struggled with braking in the low-speed corners throughout the session. The Mexican only got up to 15th on his final lap of the opening stage but was shuffled down the order by Charles Leclerc’s escape from the drop zone.

Esteban Ocon and Zhou Guanyu propped up the order, as Ocon’s late effort to overturn the on-the-cusp Lance Stroll crumbled in the final sector.