Sebastian Vettel says he is content with fourth place on the grid for the Mexican Grand Prix, as his Formula 1 title hopes continue to fade.
The German driver was initially quickest after the first set of runs before Red Bull's Max Verstappen snatched away the top spot by nearly two-tenths of a second.
On the final runs Vettel was unable to improve his time, but with former Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo taking pole position, the Ferrari driver was then demoted to fourth.
The straight-line speed of Ferrari's SF-71H has been a strong characteristic in 2018 and the four-time World Champion is keen to utilise that strength en-route to Turn 1 at the start of the race.
"It was not a very clean lap, said Vettel. "I tried very hard, had to find at least two tenths if I want to improve, didn’t happen, was very close, was not a bad lap.
"I had some snaps here and there, just didn’t come together, quite happy though got more or less everything out of the car, obviously dropping back from fourth from second is not satisfying but we see what we can do tomorrow.
"We have good straight-line speed so maybe we can do something into Turn 1 and go from there."
Vettel is keen to maximise the reliability shown by his Ferrari so far in 2018, especially nearest rivals in Red Bull and Mercedes have both shown fragility with their reliability at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit.
The German is aware of the title permutations but is happy to take the race in its stride.
"I think we probably have the best reliability so far, Red Bull they are very fast, they will be hard to beat, maybe they will beat themselves!" added Vettel.
"We’ll see It’s a long race, I think it will be decided on strategy, tyres, how confident you are at the end of stints, how far you can push, we’ll see what happens, yesterday was alright, we’ll see what happens."
Vettel must win the race with Lewis Hamilton lower than seventh place in order to prevent the British driver clinching the title.
