Carlos Sainz ended a 13-month pole drought and secured the top spot on the grid for a Mexico City Grand Prix qualifying that was full of surprises.

The most significant result was the elimination of Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez in the first quarter, meaning that the McLaren and Red Bull drivers had to line up next to each other on the penultimate row of the grid.

Another followed after the first runs in the third quarter, when Max Verstappen initially set the fastest lap and ended up second behind Sainz, but the lap was canceled after he blatantly cut off turn 2.

That put pressure on Verstappen to deliver again in his second outing, but he was unable to keep up with the sensational Sainz as the Ferrari driver put in an impressive second lap, beating Verstappen by almost a quarter of a second.

Sainz finished the race with a time of 1:15.946 seconds and was the class of the field, ahead of Verstappen, with McLaren's Lando Norris in third place, but more than three tenths of a second behind his former teammate, with second Ferrari Charles Leclerc in place four.

It is Sainz's first pole since last year's Singapore Grand Prix, a race he went on to win.

Behind the leading group, Mercedes secured the third row, with George Russell ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

The Haas duo Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg start in seventh and tenth place, with Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon from Alpine in between in his Williams.

Piastri and Perez suffer humiliation

With track temperatures 10 degrees Celsius higher than at the end of last practice, the first 18 minutes of qualifying were fast and furious as the track developed rapidly and there was no shortage of surprises.

What was most astonishing was that Piastri and the under-pressure Perez were eliminated in the first quarter.

After several riders completed the first few laps on the medium tires, it quickly became clear that everyone would have to switch to the soft tires, and on his first flying lap on the red striped tires, Piastri set times for the first and second sectors that put him easily would have gotten through.

However, at Turn 12, the first corner on the way to the stadium complex, Piastri ran too wide and exceeded the track limits, resulting in his lap being cancelled.

Instead of pitting to try a second set of soft tires, for which time would have been short anyway, Piastri started a second lap with the now worn first set of soft tires. The fact that he will start 17th says everything about McLaren's decision to keep him on track.

It is the first time this season that Piastri does not make it to Q3. Up to that point he was the only driver to achieve this.

As for Perez, the Mexican is a driver without confidence and the question marks over his future are growing.

At no point did he give the impression that he was happy with his RB20 and so he will start with an embarrassing 18th place, with only Alpine's Esteban Ocon and Zhou Guanyu in his stakes.

The quartet was joined in the early exit by Williams' Franco Colapinto, who also made a mistake on his best qualifying lap, meaning the Argentine was scheduled to start 16th.

The session was led by Norris with a time of 1:16.505 seconds, almost three tenths of a second ahead of Sainz.

Tsunoda raises red flags for Q2

In the 15-minute Q2, Norris shone first with a time of 1:16.301, 0.328 seconds faster than Verstappen, albeit helped by a slipstream from Hülkenberg at the start of his lap.

It was a time that remained unbeaten until a red flag that appeared with about 30 seconds to go.

On his final hot lap, Yuki Tsunoda got stuck in T12, slid off the track and hit a guardrail, meaning he will start 11th.

Tsunoda's accident prevented his teammate Liam Lawson from improving after setting a personal best in the first sector. However, it's fair to assume that with a time of 27.5 seconds he probably wouldn't have broken into the top 10. The New Zealander will do so starting on the 12th.

Aston Martin duo Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were about to start their final hot laps when they were forced to retire, leaving them 13th and 14th, while Stake's Valtteri Bottas sits 15th after losing it in Mexico Didn't make it to Q3 for the first time.