Lewis Hamilton Claims His First Ferrari Pole at the Mexico City Grand Prix, Becoming the Oldest Pole-Sitter Since 1982

Lewis Hamilton claimed his first Grand Prix pole position for Ferrari on Saturday, producing a lap of one minute 16.514 seconds in the closing moments of qualifying for the Mexico City Grand Prix to edge Mercedes driver George Russell by just nine thousandths of a second.

The pole, the 105th of Hamilton’s Formula One career, was his first in a Grand Prix since the Hungarian Grand Prix in July 2023 — a gap of 1,197 days — and the first for Ferrari since that same race last year. At 41, Hamilton also became the oldest driver to start a Grand Prix from pole position since Mario Andretti, then 42, took pole at Monza in 1982, according to Reuters.

It was a result that few in the paddock had predicted at the start of the weekend. Hamilton had been outpaced by his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc throughout practice and qualifying, and his preparations had been badly disrupted on Friday, when a loss of power in the second practice session forced him to stop the car and cost him almost an entire session of running. Leclerc had been faster in every session that mattered until the final minutes of Q3, when Hamilton produced what he later described as an almost perfect lap.

“Thank you so much, it has been such a long time coming,” Hamilton said over the team radio as the result was confirmed, in remarks reported by The Times. Speaking to Sky Sports afterwards, he said the achievement took him back to his childhood. “To get the pole, finally get a pole for Ferrari, just takes me back to when I was a kid and sitting on the sofa and watching Michael get those poles, thinking ‘how cool would it be to do that?’” he said, referring to Michael Schumacher, the seven-time world champion whose five consecutive titles with Ferrari between 2000 and 2004 remain the benchmark for the team.

Leclerc will start third after a lap of 1:16.633, giving Ferrari its best qualifying result of the season and its first pole position of 2026. It was the 255th pole in Ferrari’s history, and Hamilton became the 35th driver to take pole for the team, according to Ferrari. The Italian team had not started a Grand Prix from the front of the grid for 30 races.

Behind the front three, the grid carries the shape of the championship fight. Kimi Antonelli, the 20-year-old Mercedes driver who leads the standings, was promoted to fourth after Max Verstappen received a one-place grid penalty, according to The Times. Antonelli needs only to finish in the top nine on Sunday to be crowned world champion, and he would take the title even with a lower finish if neither Hamilton nor Russell wins the race, according to Reuters. Hamilton is 124 points behind Antonelli with a maximum of 100 points available to him after Mexico, while Russell is 123 points adrift, according to Reuters, meaning Sunday is the last realistic chance for either Briton to keep the championship alive.

A weekend that almost went wrong

Hamilton’s pole was all the more striking for how badly the weekend had begun. Friday’s running was interrupted first by a test programme in the opening session and then by the power failure in the second, which left him short of laps at a circuit where the thin air at more than 2,200 metres above sea level already punishes any loss of preparation. The Times reported that Leclerc had been faster all weekend, and the Monegasque driver looked the likelier Ferrari to challenge for pole until the final runs of Q3.

The high altitude of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, combined with the layout of the circuit, had appeared to reduce Mercedes’ power-unit advantage, according to The Times, and the Ferrari looked strong throughout Saturday. Both Hamilton and Leclerc will start on the clean side of the grid, which should offer more grip on the long run down to the first corner — an approximately 800-metre dash that often decides the opening lap in Mexico City.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur praised Hamilton’s performance as “a fantastic job” and noted that it was the team’s first pole of the year, according to Formula1.com. “It’s a good one for Lewis, a good one for the team as it’s also our first pole position this year,” Vasseur told F1 TV. He added that having Leclerc third as well represented “not a bad result” for the team.

The pole also completed a personal set for Hamilton. He had already taken two sprint-race poles since joining Ferrari — in China in 2025 and at Silverstone in 2026 — but a Grand Prix pole had eluded him, according to Sky Sports and Ferrari. His last Grand Prix pole had come at the Hungaroring in July 2023, when he was still a Mercedes driver.

The long road to red

To understand why this pole mattered so much, it is necessary to look back at the two seasons since Hamilton made the most consequential move of his career, leaving Mercedes for Ferrari in January 2025. The expectations were extraordinary: a seven-time world champion joining the sport’s most famous team, chasing the record eighth title that would move him clear of Schumacher. The reality of the first year was harsh. Hamilton failed to stand on a Grand Prix podium all season, and Ferrari ended 2025 without a victory, according to Reuters.

Hamilton later revealed that he had carried an injury through much of that first season, sustained in a crash during a test session at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya before the campaign began. “I had a big crash here last year and I carried that injury around all year, which was really tough,” he told Viaplay after his breakthrough win in Spain, according to reports of the interview.

The second season has been a different story. Under the new regulations for 2026, Ferrari started the year as Mercedes’ closest challenger, and Hamilton’s first Grand Prix podium for the team came in the second round in China. Second places followed in Canada and Monaco, and on 14 June at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya he won his first race for Ferrari — the 106th victory of his career, his first since the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix, and a win that made him the oldest Formula One winner since Jack Brabham triumphed at the 1970 South African Grand Prix, according to Reuters.

That victory ended a 686-day wait for a win and, briefly, revived talk of a title challenge. Hamilton was 41 points behind Antonelli after Barcelona, according to Reuters at the time, and the win came as Antonelli retired after five consecutive victories. But the championship momentum did not last. Costly moments — a brake failure and retirement in Madrid, a pit-lane speeding penalty in Hungary, contact with Russell at Spa — kept Hamilton at arm’s length from the fight, and by the time the championship reached Mexico he was effectively racing for pride and for the record books rather than the title.

He arrived in Mexico City in defiant mood. Upon his arrival at the circuit, Hamilton claimed there had never been a driver like him in the history of motorsport, according to the Associated Press, a remark that drew the usual mixture of admiration and mockery. On Saturday, he gave the paddock a reminder of why the claim still carries weight.

The Schumacher shadow

The comparison Hamilton himself reached for after qualifying was Schumacher, and it is one that has followed him since the day he signed for Ferrari. The two men share the record of seven Drivers’ Championships, but their paths to that number could hardly be more different. Hamilton won one title with McLaren and six with Mercedes; the bulk of Schumacher’s success came at Ferrari, where he won five in a row from 2000 to 2004, according to Sky Sports.

Schumacher’s first pole for Ferrari came at the 1996 San Marino Grand Prix, according to Reuters — three decades ago, and in the German’s first season with the team. Hamilton has needed almost two seasons to reach the same milestone, a measure of how difficult the transition has been. But the symbolism of the achievement is the same: the driver who was supposed to be Ferrari’s new Schumacher finally delivering on a Saturday afternoon, in front of a crowd that has always loved a Ferrari pole.

Hamilton also spoke warmly of Antonelli after qualifying, according to Reuters, praising the young Italian who replaced him at Mercedes and now stands on the verge of becoming the youngest world champion in the sport’s history. It was a generous note from a driver who has spent his career being measured against the next generation, and who on Saturday showed that he is not yet ready to be measured only against the past.

Analysis: Why It Matters

1. The one-lap question has finally been answered

For all of Hamilton’s achievements, one criticism has shadowed his Ferrari years: that his one-lap pace had faded. His pole drought stretched back more than three years, and in a sport where qualifying often decides the race, that mattered. Saturday’s lap answers that question in the most direct way possible. He did it against a team-mate who had been faster all weekend, on a weekend when he had barely run on Friday, and by the smallest of margins. Whatever else is said about Hamilton’s Ferrari years, nobody can now say he could not put the car on pole.

2. Age is a number, but it is also a story

At 41, Hamilton is the oldest pole-sitter in 44 years, and the fifth-oldest in the sport’s history, according to the Associated Press. In a sport that has always worshipped youth — and which is about to crown a 20-year-old champion — that matters. Hamilton has spoken of racing into his mid-forties, and The Times reported his insistence that he can continue even as Formula One prepares for a new African Grand Prix in Rwanda. Saturday’s pole gives that ambition credibility. It also reframes the narrative around his career: this is no longer a driver hanging on, but a driver still capable of producing the single fastest lap in the world on a given Saturday.

3. Ferrari’s drought is over, and the timing matters

Thirty races without a pole is a long time for Ferrari, and the first pole of 2026 arrives at a moment when the team needs evidence that its second year with Hamilton is genuinely different from the first. The pole does not erase the gap to Mercedes in the championship, but it does change the internal conversation. A team that has spent two years explaining why its most famous signing could not qualify at the front now has a pole position to point to. For the engineers and mechanics who have worked through a difficult transition, that is worth more than the three points a pole position does not even award.

4. It changes almost nothing for the title — and that is fine

The hard truth is that Hamilton’s pole is unlikely to change the destination of the championship. Antonelli needs only a top-nine finish on Sunday, and with 124 points in hand and only 100 available to Hamilton after Mexico, the mathematics is brutal. But that misses the point of what Saturday was about. Not every great sporting moment has to decide a title. Sometimes it is enough that a 41-year-old, written off by many, produced a lap that nobody else in the world could match. The title will be decided on Sunday; the pole will be remembered for much longer.

5. The eighth title still flickers

Hamilton’s stated ambition since joining Ferrari has been an eighth world championship, the one that would move him clear of Schumacher. That dream is not alive in 2026 — Antonelli will almost certainly end it on Sunday — but Saturday’s pole keeps it flickering for the years ahead. If Hamilton can still take pole positions at 41, in a car that has not been the fastest on the grid, then the question of whether he can win an eighth title is not yet closed. It depends on the car Ferrari builds next, and on whether the team can give him the Saturdays and Sundays he needs. But the driver, on the evidence of Mexico City, is still there.

What to Watch Next

1. Sunday’s race: The Grand Prix starts at 15:00 local time on Sunday and runs over 71 laps for a total distance of 305.354 kilometres, according to Ferrari. Hamilton will aim to become the first Ferrari driver to win a race from pole position since Carlos Sainz in Mexico in 2024, according to the Associated Press.
2. The coronation scenario: Antonelli starts fourth and will be crowned the youngest world champion in Formula One history if he finishes ninth or higher, regardless of who wins, according to The Times. If Hamilton or Russell fails to win, the title is Antonelli’s whatever happens.
3. Hamilton’s race pace: His disrupted Friday means his long-run pace is something of an unknown, according to The Times. The Ferrari looked strong over one lap, but converting pole into a win requires a different kind of speed over 71 laps at altitude.
4. The first-corner dash: The run to Turn 1 is around 800 metres, and the slipstream often plays an important role, according to Ferrari. Both Ferraris start on the clean side of the grid, but Russell’s Mercedes will be alongside Hamilton and Antonelli will be looking for a way past both.
5. What comes after Mexico: With the title effectively decided, the remaining races become a contest for pride, for second place in the championship, and for the shape of 2027. Hamilton’s pole gives Ferrari something to build on — and gives the driver himself a reminder, if he needed one, of what he is still capable of.

Sources

• Reuters — Hamilton recalls Schumacher after first Ferrari pole, hails Antonelli
• Sky Sports — Mexico City GP Qualifying: Lewis Hamilton claims first pole position for Ferrari
• The Times — Lewis Hamilton takes his first pole in three years in Mexico City
• The Associated Press via theScore — Hamilton earns 1st pole with Ferrari in Mexico
• Scuderia Ferrari — Lewis on pole and Charles third on the team’s best Qualifying of the season