Sainz’s Ferrari briefly lost power after the red flag stoppage in Q1, but the issue resolved itself💯 allowing the Spaniard to safely make his way through the first two qualifying stages.

He wen👍t onto qualify sixth, two places ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc.

Sainz described qualifying in Mexico as “too♒ stressful” and “very complicated”.

“Yeah it’s just been too stressful for my liking,” Sainz said. “It’s been a very, very compli🔥cated session. I lost the feeling with the car in Q1, I also lost the feeling with the medium tyres, the car was a bit tricky so actually I never really did a clean lap until Q3, run two.

“Even the lap, because I was so much out of rhythm in the previous laps, it didn’t feel particularly special compared to FP3 or FP2 laps when ౠI had a much better fee💮ling.

“When I finished the lap, I thought I was g💃oing to be P10/P9 and suddenly they told me I was P6 and I was a bit happier. We ꦐexpected this session to be a bit easier than it was.”

Sainz admitted that he expected ✱to beat Pierre Gasly to fifth on the grid despite the AlphaTauri driver benefitting from a tow from hisဣ teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

“Well they’ve been playing around with tows which✃ is a couple of tenths around here and they’ve 𝓀been on our pace the whole weekend,” Sainz added. “If you add the two-tenths of the tow then normal they are two or three tenths ahead.

“Apart from that, honestly, I expected to be ahead because in 🦋FP3 I was flying, I was really comfortable with the car and in qualifying, I wasn’t. Something to analyse there and something to keep looking for.”

Leclerc coul🐈d only manage eighth on the grid and he was left disappointed by his own performanc♔e across the weekend.

“I am disappointed in myself today,” he said. “It’s been a very difficult weekend for me. F🐟P1, FP2 and FP3 I have been struggling but then in qualifying, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel with the car getting to where I wanted it to be and we were very competitive.

“When I needed to do the lap in Q3 I didn’t do it because of mistakes from myꦦ side. It’s like this.”