Nico Rosberg will start on pole position for Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix after edging out Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Rosberg was 0.188 seconds faster than Hamilton while Sebastian Vettel will start from third for Ferrari.
Hamilton, who secured the championship last Sunday in Austin, has now gone five races without taking pole.
Rosberg has endured a torrid week after his late mistake in the United States Grand Prix handed Hamilton the title. But the German, who blamed a gust of wind for the championship-ending error, bounced back in emphatic fashion on Formula One’s return to Mexico to seal his fourth pole in a row. Rosberg was fastest in the second and third practice sessions here and carried his impressive form through to qualifying.
For Hamitlon, who has now not been on pole since the Italian Grand Prix in September, was made to rue two errors. The first, where he locked up on his opening run in the top 10 shootout, and the second on his final effort after he ran off the track in the stadium section. The 50th pole of Hamilton’s career is certainly proving elusive.
Sergio Perez is only the third Mexican to take part in a Formula One grand prix in his homeland and every move was greeted by cheers from this most patriotic of crowds. "Checo, Checo" — the Force India driver's nickname — and "Mexico, Mexico" were raucously chanted in scenes which would not have looked out of place at a football stadium. And fortunately Perez made it through to the final phase of qualifying before qualifying ninth ahead of his Force India team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.
Elsewhere in the top 10, Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo qualified fourth and fifth for Red Bull. The Williams duo of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, who clocked the speed gun at an incredibly quick 226mph, will start sixth and seventh. The ever-impressive Max Verstappen will start eighth in his Toro Rosso.
The McLaren pair of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso both finished in the points last time out. But it was back to business as usual in Mexico City with both drivers failing to progress beyond the first qualifying phase. Button, who will already serve a 50-place grid penalty due to Formula One's complicated engine rules, did not even take part in the session. The 2009 world champion was stranded in the McLaren garage with a signal problem on his engine. Button will prop up the grid on Sunday and he will be joined there by Alonso. The Spaniard qualified 16th but will be demoted to the back row after changes to elements within his Honda engine.
Kimi Raikkonen, the third world champion to be handed a grid penalty this weekend after he changed his gearbox, spun at turn one and parked his Ferrari with a brake issue. He qualified 15th but is set to start 18th once he has served his penalty.
