REPORT: In the top 10 in Mexico Quali

Williams Racing took our highest qualifying position at the Mexico City GP since 2016 as Alex Albon secured a P9 result on Saturday.

Alex equalled his qualifying best for the fourth time this season after reaching Q3 at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and set a lap of 1:17.065.

Franco Colapinto will line up in P16 after being just one position away from reaching Q2, with his 1:17.558 effort a little over a tenth away from escaping Q1.

The grid was as tight as ever, and five teams exited the first portion of Qualifying, including drivers from the leading two constructors in the standings.

Alex was the first car to exit the pit lane in Q2, and he ran both his push laps on a quieter track to set his best time of the weekend with a 1:16.988.

Our decision to run away from our competitors worked well as Alex avoided traffic and a late-session incident.

Yuki Tsunoda crashed in the final sector to trigger a red flag in the final moments of Q2, ending any hopes of progress for those needing to improve.

Track limits violations for others helped car #23 sit P7 after the first laps in Q3, and Albono improved on his second run to end the day in P9.

It's a strong result for the team after Franco put in nearly all of the running on Friday after Alex's FP1 crash.

James Vowles shared his gratitude on the in-lap, saying, "Well done, Alex. Really, really good recovery. It's a good starting position."

"Q3 was a nice surprise today but I do think we could’ve been P7," Alex commented after Qualifying.

"I caught some dirty air from the Mercedes’ in the final sector, which could’ve put us ahead of Kevin and Pierre but we’re still in a good position for tomorrow and I’m glad I could deliver P9 for the team and the mechanics who worked really hard to repair the car.

"Obviously, I haven’t had the chance to do a long run, so we won’t know until we go out there, but the car feels good and the used tyres we ran on felt okay which is a good judge ahead of tomorrow.

"We have a lot of our direct competitors around us tomorrow and a few cars out of position but it’s not always easy to overtake around here, so we’ll try our best to move forward."

Franco will be aiming to push forward after a tricky Saturday afternoon in Mexico, sharing: "It was a very difficult Qualifying session today.

"Unfortunately, it looks like we went in the wrong direction with the set-up change we made after FP3.

"I was struggling to combine in the corners and suffered from over rotation. We need to try and recover tomorrow but it’ll be tricky with how the balance of the car is right now.

"We’ll look to understand the issues and see what we can do to fix it with the tools available. Hopefully, we can try to go forward in the race."

Sporting Director Sven Smeets wrapped up our Saturday reaction by adding: "We knew it would be tight in Qualifying this afternoon, and unfortunately, Franco didn’t progress to Q2 as he was struggling with an over-rotating car in Q1.

"He will start tomorrow from P16, but his race pace yesterday was strong, so he’ll be battling to move up the field.

"After just five push laps in FP3, Alex put in a great last lap in Q1 and advanced smoothly into Q2.

"We decided to focus on our out laps in Q2, which paid off, as Alex delivered another strong lap to secure P7 and move into Q3.

"He’ll start tomorrow’s race from P9, which is a great performance considering yesterday’s circumstances. The race will be tight in the midfield, but we’re confident we have a car capable of fighting for points."