Vettel clutches at Red Bull wipeout as title hopes fade

Sebastian Vettel optimistically suggested that Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen might take each other out of the Mexican Grand Prix after the Red Bull drivers locked out the front row for a race that the Ferrari man must win to keep any title hopes alive.

Only a win will keep Vettel's title dream alive, but it will be immaterial if Lewis Hamilton finishes seventh or higher at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Hamilton and Vettel will line up on the second row of the grid, with the Mercedes man in third place and Vettel fourth.

The pair made contact in this race last year, with Hamilton going on to win his fourth title as Vettel could not recover to a good enough position.

Vettel cannot afford a repeat, but with Red Bull showing pace that no team has matched thus far, Vettel hopes their drivers competitive sprit will get the better of them.

"It was not a clean lap," he told Sky Sports of his qualifying effort – two tenths down on Ricciardo's pole time.

#Seb5 P4 1:14.970 and #Kimi7 P6 1:15.330 is the outcome of the #MexicoGP #Quali we’ll fight it out tomorrow #ForzaFerrari #Nevergiveup pic.twitter.com/aZbLpxiatS — Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) October 27, 2018

"I tried very hard and I knew I had to find two tenths to improve. It didn't happen but it was very close.

"It wasn't a bad lap, but I had some snaps here and there.

"I think we got more or less everything out of the car, dropping back to fourth from second is not satisfying but we'll see what we can do from there - we have good straight line speed so maybe that will help.

"We probably have the best reliability so far, the Red Bulls are fast so they will be hard to beat but they might beat themselves.

"I think it's about confidence, how confident we are and how confident we are in the tyres and being able to push it."

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