Hamilton snatches pole as Piastri loses out: Winners and losers from Mexico City GP qualifying

Lewis Hamilton rolled back the years in Mexico by claiming a brilliant pole position, his first in three years.

After breaking down in FP1 things weren't looking good for the F1 legend, but he stayed cool as Verstappen and others made mistakes. He became the oldest pole-sitter since Mario Andretti at Monza in 1982, which was also for Ferrari.

Meanwhile, two days in Mexico have seen enough drama to last an entire season. Here are the winners and losers from Saturday.

Winner: Lewis Hamilton

Put in a scintillating lap, 0.009sec ahead of George Russell, for that first ever Ferrari pole.

Said he arrived at the circuit on Wednesday to dig into what needed to be done to get back to the front - good job it was all worth it. Can he convert to a win on Sunday?

Loser: Esteban Ocon

After losing his drive at Haas for next year, Ocon has managed to fall out with his team and be replaced in Mexico by a 32-year-old debutant in the shape of Ryo Hirakawa.

The Frenchman was then forced to deny reports that he got into a violent altercation with Haas boss Ayao Komatsu after a report from L’Equipe.

What a sorry state of affairs.

READ NEXT: Esteban Ocon issues statement as he addresses Mexico GP situation

Winner: George Russell

After a dismal United States GP, finishing eighth while his teammate won, Russell regained his mojo in Mexico, putting his car on the front row for Mexico.

The Mercedes man will be hoping to secure second place in the championship ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

"It feels like we're not doing any average laps this year, either terrible laps or really good laps, and it never seemed like I was in the fight for a good good result today," he said afterwards.

"This whole weekend I've been off a pace, I've been struggling, and then just sort of out nowhere in Q3, the lap came."

Loser: Liam Lawson

Friday: Gets biffed off the track by Red Bull’s top dog Max Verstappen.

Saturday: Is forced to apologise.

To rub salt in the wound, Lawson’s had a brilliant season, but finds himself fighting for his F1 seat at Racing Bulls, the team pondering whether to promote F2 star Nikola Tsolov. What’s a Kiwi to do?

READ NEXT: Red Bull F1 boss weighs in on 'unnecessary' Max Verstappen-Liam Lawson clash

Winner: Ryo Hirakawa

19th place in qualifying never tasted so sweet.

Finally, at the age of 32 and following many Free Practice session tryouts as well as tests in a few knackered-out F1 cars, Ryo Hirakawa is an F1 driver.

Loser: Oscar Piastri

The Australian really doesn’t like this generation of cars.

What’s been a sizeable gap to his teammate Lando Norris all year turned into chasm in Mexico, Piastri qualifying 13th to the Brit’s sixth.

The Australian is known to struggle on low-grip tracks - dusty old Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez looks like his worst nightmare.