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Lewis Hamilton rolled back the years to remind the Formula One world that he is still one of the best in the business with a blistering pole lap in Mexico City. It is the 41-year-old's first pole position for a Grand Prix as a Ferrari driver and the 105th of his career. He has been stuck on 104 since 2023, so some might say this record-extending result is long overdue. But the fact it has happened this year has created a special bit of symmetry.
Hamilton, synonymous with his racing number 44, is now the oldest driver to take pole position in F1 since Mario Andretti back in 1982. That was, of course, 44 years ago – some things are just meant to be.
In truth, this particular one had looked like Charles Leclerc's to lose. Hamilton admitted afterwards that his weekend had been a bit of a mess up to qualifying, having sacrificed first practice to experiment and test his car, while he lost half of the second hour of practice with an engine problem.
Neither Ferrari was on top in FP3 but Hamilton put the Scuderia back up there by finally delivering when it mattered in Q3. "Wow, that felt great," he said, before adding that he was "lost for words".
He eventually found them and added: ""It's been a really tough, challenging weekend. In FP1 we had the rake running and then we had the engine issue in FP2, which put us on the back foot and meant we weren't able to do a long run.
"But we did a good job with the setup over the weekend, we've learned a lot from the last race. It's so close between us all... Wow, to have pole here, I don't know if I've had a pole here before. It's my first pole with Ferrari and 105, I like that number."
To still be able to compete at this level at his age, Hamilton has said before that he has to work harder than most to keep his body in shape. But he explained that his mental strength is just as valuable to him at this stage of his career, as the fire to compete at the highest level still rages inside.
Hamilton said: "When there's a will, there's a way. It's all in the mind, honestly, for all of us. We all have our aches and pains, I ice bath a lot, I do lots of different things that you can do to keep yourself young and fit.
"But I love what I do and that love has not gone – I wake up every day thinking about it, I dream about it. I've got this amazing support around the world and these guys keep me going, so I hope they're happy with that today and that I can do it again tomorrow."
Hamilton's pole comes after Leclerc spoke of how much he continues to learn from the Brit as a happy side-effect of being his team-mate at Ferrari. The Monegasque said: "With Lewis, 100 percent I think, to push each other every weekend, there are some weekends where he's just incredibly quick and I learn a huge amount.
"When I'm doing a good job, I still learn a huge amount from Lewis in just looking at the data and trying to understand the way he works and the way he just dealt with the car, because he's incredibly good at it.
"There's always something to take after each weekend. I've got my notebook with a lot of notes and probably more notes than ever since Lewis joined the team."
Big moments. Packed grandstands. A championship battle that’s heating up.
When the Formula 1 season delivers like this, watching from home just isn’t the same as being there when the lights go out.
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