Top photo: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - NOVEMBER 01: Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing and Second placed Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari lift 2026 F1 World Drivers Champion and third placed Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team onto their shoulders on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Mexico at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on November 01, 2026 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
Kimi Antonelli crossed the line third in Mexico City on Sunday, crying so hard he could barely see, and the 2026 World Championship was his. He needed ninth. He got a podium, 380 points and a 119-point lead over Max Verstappen with four races left, so it's over. "Already the lap before, I think I lost probably two seconds because I was already crying, basically. I couldn't see clearly ahead," he said in the press conference. At 20 years and 68 days old, he's the youngest champion the sport has ever had, beating Sebastian Vettel's record by three years and 66 days. He's Italy's first world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953, and only the third ever, after Nino Farina and Ascari.
It's the speed of it that gets you. He's only the fourth driver to win his first title in his second season, after Juan Manuel Fangio, Jacques Villeneuve and Lewis Hamilton. This time last year he was a rookie who'd gone a long run of races without points, and he knows it. "some people said that I wasn't belonging to Formula One or I wasn't ready for it. Which, at some point last year, probably looked like that. I wasn't ready for it," he said. Toto Wolff, who put him in the car straight out of junior racing, went through the whole list: "People said he shouldn't even be in F1, he should be at a smaller team, 10 races and no points, the tears in Spa, and then this." Nine wins later, you don't hear much from those people.
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - NOVEMBER 01: 2026 F1 World Drivers Champion and third placed Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team kisses his trophy on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Mexico at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on November 01, 2026 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
The podium ceremony got to him, too. They played Nessun Dorma for him, and the song meant more to him than anyone in the crowd knew: "it was a song that my grandfather used to listen to always, so it was very special to hear that." His dad, Marco, was there too, and Leclerc said the sight of Kimi's parents under the podium was "a beautiful image." Wolff seemed amused by what the kid has done to the Mercedes garage, where, as he put it, "now all the Brits are hugging each other, which is weird to see." Antonelli also settled the obvious question about his car number. He's keeping 12. "I'm very superstitious, and number one has never been a good number for me. Whenever I put it, it went extremely badly," he said... and as one reporter pointed out, he's the first champion to win it with 12 since Ayrton Senna in 1988.
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - NOVEMBER 01: 2026 F1 World Drivers Champion and third placed Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team celebrates with his family in parc ferme during the F1 Grand Prix of Mexico at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on November 01, 2026 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
The other drivers were just as impressed. Lando Norris, who hands over the crown he won last year, said the nicest thing of all: "I hope everyone gives him enough credit for what he's achieved this year, because he's made everyone else look silly." Verstappen called him "the deserved champion this year." Hamilton, who finished one place ahead of him, said, "Youngest World Champion ever is pretty phenomenal, and I'm so grateful to be in the race to witness it." The pundits went further. Damon Hill, commentating for BBC Radio 5 Live, said, "I don't see anything else other than him getting better and better," and Nico Rosberg, on Sky, wasn't putting a limit on it: "It feels like there are going to be many more world championships there. I don't know how far he's going to get!" On BBC's Chequered Flag podcast the next morning, former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley summed up the mood in the paddock: "I felt like we were witnessing a really special moment."
The race that got him there was a mess, and most of the mess was Ferrari's. Hamilton took his first pole for Ferrari on Saturday by 0.009 seconds from George Russell, with Leclerc third, Verstappen fourth and Antonelli fifth. Verstappen dropped a place on the grid for an FP2 collision with Liam Lawson, which moved Antonelli up to fourth. Russell's start fell apart on the run to Turn 1 (F1 put it down to apparent energy deployment problems), and he dropped to sixth and tipped Isack Hadjar into a spin, which got him a ten-second penalty. Up front, the two Ferraris went side by side through the first sequence of corners, both ran off at Turn 4, and Leclerc came back across the grass in the lead while Hamilton rejoined with a bad exit. Verstappen went straight past him. Leclerc got a five-second penalty for it, and Hamilton wasn't happy that it wasn't more: "the stewards are basically handing Charles this win," he said on the radio.
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - NOVEMBER 01: Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Scuderia Ferrari SF-26 and Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain driving the (44) Scuderia Ferrari SF-26 battle for track position at the race start during the F1 Grand Prix of Mexico at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on November 01, 2026 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
They weren't. Verstappen was the only front-runner on mediums, and when he and Leclerc pitted together at the end of lap 27, Leclerc served his penalty and Verstappen came out ahead. Antonelli stayed out on his softs and led the race for a while. "I think we had a strong pace, especially in that first stint, when we went for 40-plus laps on the soft, and we were still very quick," he said. He pitted on lap 43 with a 4.3-second stop, and moments later Valtteri Bottas's Cadillac had a front-left suspension failure under braking for Turn 1 and hit the barrier hard. Bottas was fine ("It was a big impact going into Turn 1, but thankfully I'm okay"), but the barrier wasn't, and the race was red-flagged from lap 46. Mercedes' Andrew Shovlin said the red flag "effectively reset things and removed the tyre advantage we had created."
At the standing restart, Verstappen led from Leclerc, with Hamilton third and Antonelli fourth, all on softs. Hamilton jumped Leclerc off the line and went around the outside of Verstappen into Turn 1, and they touched, but Verstappen kept it. Antonelli took Leclerc for third into Turn 1 the next lap, after Leclerc flat-spotted a tyre (locking the brakes so hard it wore a flat patch on the rubber) at the restart, and that was the title, more or less. There was one more Safety Car, after Oscar Piastri clipped Arvid Lindblad's Racing Bulls into the wall, and one more restart with eight laps to go. Verstappen nailed it and held off Hamilton by 0.799 seconds. "Lewis was in my gearbox, pushing hard. It was basically a qualifying lap till the end," he said. It was his 74th career win, his third win in four races, and his sixth in Mexico City, so he's earned the joke: "they should actually call it the 'Maxico' Grand Prix."
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - NOVEMBER 01: Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing celebrates in parc ferme during the F1 Grand Prix of Mexico at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on November 01, 2026 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
Ferrari, meanwhile, had a one-two at Turn 4 and left with second and fourth. Things boiled over afterwards. Karun Chandhok, on Sky's commentary, called it as it happened: "By not playing the team game properly and not creating a strict structure around the two drivers, they're again not going to win a Grand Prix." Hamilton was blunt in the press conference: "The guy is 28 years old, so I don't think it's an age thing. I think it's a mentality thing." Leclerc admitted, "The penalty was deserved in a way," and Fred Vasseur didn't sound like a man who enjoyed his Sunday: "My only discussion, it's a matter of respect." Hamilton added that he'd "lost second in the championship" over it. He's right, too: he's two points behind Verstappen now.
Behind them, Leclerc held fourth with a vibration all the way to the flag, ahead of Norris and Russell. Wolff said Russell was "distraught" afterwards, and Mercedes was fined for excusing him from his media duties. Lawson took seventh from a pit-lane start after being disqualified from qualifying, Gabriel Bortoleto was eighth for Audi, Hadjar recovered to ninth, and Haas's Ryo Hirakawa took the last point on his Grand Prix debut (more on that in a second). That top ten only settled after the race. Piastri got ten seconds for the Lindblad crash and fell to 13th, and both Alpines lost their points for failing to slow under yellow flags. Both Aston Martins were out after five laps with power unit problems. And Sergio Pérez's 300th Grand Prix ended in 16th, after a slow stop and a pit-lane speeding penalty that he put down to a sensor issue. He still sounded grateful: "it's been a real pleasure to be here in Mexico this week, racing in front of these incredible fans."
Haas had the strangest weekend of anyone, and it started before qualifying. On Saturday morning the team announced that reserve driver Hirakawa would replace Esteban Ocon "for the remainder of the weekend's Mexico City Grand Prix," and gave no reason. Ocon's already on his way out (Haas announced his exit at the end of September and signed Ferrari junior Rafael Câmara to replace him in 2027 a couple of weeks later), and he'd made his unhappiness plain on the radio in Friday's second practice when the team switched his long run from softs to mediums. Team boss Ayao Komatsu wouldn't explain: "I can't tell you much but I can tell you he's not ill." Then came reports of a physical altercation, and Ocon answered with a statement that admitted a disagreement but denied the rest: "I categorically reject any reports or allegations suggesting that any form of physical violence was used to resolve differences of any nature." Jenson Button, on Sky, didn't think there was any coming back from it: "he has possibly thrown away the rest of his career in F1." Hirakawa, a two-time World Endurance champion and Le Mans winner with Toyota, became the oldest F1 debutant since André Lotterer in 2014 at 32, and he scored a point. Haas still hasn't said who'll drive its second car at Interlagos.
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - NOVEMBER 01: Ryo Hirakawa of Japan and Haas F1 arrives on the grid prior to the F1 Grand Prix of Mexico at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on November 01, 2026 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Simon Galloway/LAT Images)
The drivers' title is settled, but second place in the standings is wide open, with Verstappen on 261, Hamilton 259, Russell 250 and Leclerc 245, and even Norris (221) isn't out of it mathematically. Mercedes can finish off the constructors' championship in Brazil. It leads Ferrari 630 to 504, and with a maximum of 43 points per team per race, 129 will be left after Brazil. If Mercedes outscores Ferrari by three points at Interlagos, it's over, because a tie on points would go to Mercedes on wins (12 to Ferrari's two). Antonelli wants that one too: "We still have races to go and we want to finish the season strongly by clinching the Constructors' Championship, but tonight we're definitely going to enjoy this moment together as a team." Red Bull is third on 382, 17 clear of McLaren, and Andrea Stella said McLaren has "the upgrades coming to Brazil next week" to try to catch them. Verstappen will have Tom Hart on the radio again in Brazil, with GianPiero Lambiase still at the track as Red Bull's head of racing.
Interlagos closes out a triple-header, three race weekends in a row. It's 4.309 kilometres (about 2.68 miles), run anti-clockwise over 71 laps, and Bottas still holds the lap record, a 1:10.540 from 2018. There's no sprint this time, just a normal weekend. Pirelli's bringing its three softest tyres (C3, C4 and C5), softer than last year's. Pirelli thinks that'll open up the strategy: "The softest trio could significantly broaden the range of strategic options available to teams at Interlagos, encouraging scenarios in which all three compounds are used during the race." Last year Norris won from pole, with Antonelli second and Verstappen third after starting from the pit lane. Verstappen's won here three times since 2019 (2019, 2023 and 2024), and Hamilton's 2021 win from tenth is still one of the drives of the era. Antonelli's bringing something special of his own: "I will have a special helmet for Brazil, for Ayrton."
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - NOVEMBER 9: The race start during the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace on November 9, 2025 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Kym Illman/Getty Images)
It's Bortoleto's home race, too, and last year's was over on the opening lap. He's hoping for better: "Interlagos should suit our car, and if we can put together a clean weekend, unlike the one we had here, hopefully we can fight for some good points in front of my home crowd." Vasseur wants a quick response after Mexico: "Now we head to São Paulo, where we will try to win, and in this respect it is good that the next race comes so soon." I'd love to know how many of the people in the Interlagos grandstands will be waving Brazilian flags for Bortoleto and how many will be there for whatever Antonelli's helmet looks like.
My Mexico call (Leclerc, Antonelli and Verstappen, with Hadjar out and Russell fifth) got two of the podium names right and almost nothing else, though I did have Antonelli taking the title there, so I'll take half a point. Here's how I see Sunday, November 8 (lights out at 2 PM local, noon Eastern now that US clocks have gone back). Verstappen takes pole on Saturday with Antonelli second and Hamilton third, and he leads through the Senna S, the downhill left-right at the start of the lap, while Hamilton avoids any trouble this time and leaves Leclerc to fight Norris behind him. I'm calling a two-stop race on the mediums and softs, with everyone pitting for the first time around lap 20. A car stopping on the back of the circuit brings out a virtual safety car just after half-distance, and Mercedes uses it to get Antonelli ahead in the pit lane. Verstappen gets him back with a move into Turn 1 after they've all pitted for the last time, around lap 55, and Antonelli, with nothing left to prove this year, doesn't fight it too hard. Hamilton finishes third, so the fight for second will still be close in Las Vegas. One of the Aston Martins doesn't make the finish, because I don't trust Aston's reliability after both cars retired in Mexico. And Bortoleto gets his points at home.
Verstappen, Antonelli and Hamilton, in that order.
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