"The tires are so fragile": Mercedes boss on what helped Ferrari secure pole position for the 2023 F1 Mexican GP

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has said that the tires were very "fragile" and needed to get into the zone quicker as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell qualified outside the Top 5 for the Mexican GP.

The Mercedes pair qualified in P6 and P8 after they failed to put on a lap comparable to their rivals in the Q3 session. The gap to their rivals Ferrari, who secured the front row, was alarming as they were more than half a second slower on the one-lap pace.

Speaking with Sky Sports, Wolff pointed out the difficulty in bringing the tires into the perfect window and how Ferrari were able to see such a huge jump from Q2 to Q3. He said:

"What you see is the margins are so fine. The Ferraris came out of nowhere. It's about getting the out laps right. Two or three seconds slower or faster and suddenly you have a decent lap time. It's almost incalculable. The tires are so fragile and the ones that bring it to the point are just quick."

He added:

"The Ferraris jumped massively from Q2 to Q3. Both had a fantastic Sector 1 because they got the outlaps right. We were maybe a tiny bit too slow, a little bit cold and that's why the times didn't come together. But we are talking fine margins, it's two-tenths."

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Mercedes driver analyzes his qualifying session at Mexico GP

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has said that he had been struggling with the performance of the car the entire weekend.

Hamilton, who will start from P6, said that despite the changes to the car in qualifying, they did not get the desired result. He said:

"I have been struggling all weekend with the car. The car has been a bit of a nightmare to drive. It just doesn't like this track. We made some good changes going into qualifying. I was much happier with the car. I wish we had done it in the morning."

He added:

"Q1 and Q2 weren't looking too bad. Q2, the second lap was great but the car is just really peaky - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and I just wasn't able to extract much more from it. In a perfect world, I could have been fifth but that's about it."

It will be fascinating to see how Mercedes will perform in the main race on Sunday as they do have a superior race pace compared to the car around them.