‘What on earth’: Martin Brundle very confused by 27-year-old F1 driver’s qualifying pace in Mexico

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Martin Brundle couldn’t believe the difference in Alex Albon’s pace between practice and qualifying at the Mexican Grand Prix yesterday.

Brundle was commentating on an entertaining qualifying session for Sky Sports F1 yesterday.

There was a lot of excitement going into the session after three fascinating practice sessions.

Unsurprisingly, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was top of all three warm-up sessions but he couldn’t convert that into a pole position.

Williams were delighted with the pace of Alex Albon going into last night’s qualifying.

He had split the Red Bulls in FP1 and FP3 but was furious that his car felt so different when it mattered on Saturday evening.

Martin Brundle couldn’t understand what was happening to Albon’s car during Mexican Grand Prix qualifying.

It saw the British-born Thai driver squeeze through the first round of qualifying before eventually ending up in 14^th.

He’s now going to have to work hard to finish in the top ten when he may have been aiming for a highest-ever grid slot during his time with Williams.

Brundle stunned by Albon drop-off in Mexican GP qualifying

In the first qualifying session, Brundle mused about how impressed he was with his pace leading up to the session and said: “What we’re seeing here is a team, a car, a driver and a race circuit just gelling and working beautifully.

However, Albon struggled to live up to the standards he set in practice and the driver said towards the end of Q1, “Guys, the tyres are completely gone, I’ve got a completely different car.”

Brundle concluded: “What on earth is going on there?”

Albon was far from the only driver who saw his car’s performance change drastically over the course of the weekend.

After just squeezing both cars into Q3 yesterday, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. produced incredible laps to lock out the front row of the grid.

Daniel Ricciardo managed to nail the entire session and will start fourth and ahead of an under-pressure Sergio Perez at his home race.

Brundle joins the long list of people surprised by Albon’s performance in qualifying at the Mexican GP.

He will hope that the conditions in today’s race mirror those of Friday’s practice sessions and that he can make his way through the grid.