Max Verstappen believes retirements are his only hope of winning heading into Sunday's Mexico City Grand Prix.

The four-time world champion will start in P5 following a difficult day in qualifying, during which he finished almost half a second behind Lando Norris in pole.

Verstappen has closed the gap on Drivers' Championship leader Oscar Piastri to 40 points after winning three of the last four Grands Prix.

However, the Dutchman conceded he will require favours from elsewhere to stand any chance of claiming another victory in Mexico City.

"There is no real recovery drive when you have no pace," he said. "I need people to retire in front of me to go ahead.

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"Every lap that I have done this weekend has not been good, short-run, long-run, it never felt in the window, and that is not going to suddenly change for the better."

Piastri, who could surrender top spot after seeing his lead cut to 14 points, saw his recent struggles continue, as he could only finish eighth in qualifying.

"All feels OK, just no pace, which is a bit of a mystery," he said after finishing 0.588seconds behind Norris. "It has been more or less the same gap all weekend. We will have a look at where I was going wrong then.

"This weekend and last weekend, it felt like the pace hasn't come. [I'm] not 100% sure why yet, we will do some digging."