Top photo: SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - NOVEMBER 08: Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, Toto Wolff, Executive Director of Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team and George Russell of Great Britain and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team celebrate winning the 2026 World Constructors Championship on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace on November 08, 2026 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
Mercedes won the 2026 Constructors' Championship at Interlagos on Sunday, and neither of its cars made the podium. George Russell spun on the way out of the pit lane, new world champion Kimi Antonelli spun from the lead (and once more on his way to the grid), and the team limped home fourth and fifth. It didn't matter. That was plenty, because Mercedes now leads Ferrari 652 to 510 with three races left, and that's title number nine, its first since 2021. Toto Wolff didn't exactly throw a party. "I'm not celebrating!" he told F1 TV. "I'm just thinking 'what went wrong in this race? Why have we underperformed? And what can we do for Las Vegas and next year?'" The race itself went to Lando Norris, who won a wet, dry, then wet again São Paulo Grand Prix from pole, while Max Verstappen started 21st and finished second.
Norris's start was a mess. He got wheelspin off the line, Antonelli shot past from second, and Liam Lawson went around the outside of the McLaren to take second into Turn 2. "I thought I did things correctly, but just went straight into wheelspin," Norris said in the press conference. Everyone started on intermediates on a damp, drying track, and Antonelli was about seven seconds clear when the switch to slicks began. Lewis Hamilton went first, at the end of lap 14. Norris, Russell and Isack Hadjar came in two laps later, and Mercedes left Antonelli out one more lap, which looked fine until he rejoined only two seconds ahead of Norris on cold tyres. He told his team "something is weird with the car," and on lap 20 he spun at Turn 1 and handed Norris the lead. Apart from a few laps while he pitted, Norris kept it the rest of the way.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - NOVEMBER 8: The race start during the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace on November 8, 2026 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Kym Illman/Getty Images)
From there it was about as clean as a race in those conditions can be. "The main thing today was I just kept it cool, I didn't make any mistakes, and I had the pace when I needed to," Norris said, and he called it "Certainly up there with one of the best I've ever had." BBC's Andrew Benson, on the Chequered Flag podcast, said "Norris was a class above everybody else in terms of pace once the race got going," and that's about right. He got through two more pit visits, including the late switch back to intermediates when the rain came back with ten laps left, and won by 14.6 seconds. It's his third win of the year after Hungary and Zandvoort, and his second straight win at Interlagos. Andrea Stella said "he didn't make even the slightest mistake, apart from the incident on the podium!" That incident was Norris backing into the podium fireworks with a broken champagne bottle in his hand. He was fine, and the Red Bull drivers soaked him anyway.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - NOVEMBER 08: Race winner Lando Norris of Great Britain and McLaren celebrates with his broken Champagne bottle on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace on November 08, 2026 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Hector Vivas - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)
Funny thing is, Norris didn't think he'd have been on pole in the dry. "We're lucky it's wet, because if it was dry, I wouldn't be sitting here," he said on Saturday. McLaren brought upgrades to Brazil, including a front wing aimed at next year, and the car looked a lot more comfortable, but he isn't getting carried away. "We're not at the level we need to be. We're not confident in the package we have just yet," he said. For now, it's enough to keep McLaren in a real fight with Red Bull for third in the constructors' standings, 398 points to 415.
Verstappen went from 21st to second. Red Bull went over the season's limit on engine parts after what Laurent Mekies called "a small issue on Friday," and with 30 places' worth of penalties he started from the back. So he ran in Q1, skipped Q2 and spent the rest of a long, rain-delayed Saturday waiting, which he didn't enjoy: "Well, you'd never get those hours back. I mean, those 12 hours are gone." On Sunday he was 13th after one lap and seventh after five. Mekies couldn't quite believe it either. "As always, I think no sim in the world would predict that you go from P21 to P2, or that you get 14 places in five laps," he said. "So he's beating the sim on a regular basis!" Verstappen got up to second when Red Bull told Hadjar to let him by on lap 38, and that's where he finished. "But, I mean, starting P21 and being on the podium in second, I think is a very good result," he said, though he added, "I actually did most of the race with a car that was not in good shape." Former IndyCar winner James Hinchcliffe, on the F1 Nation podcast, said it best: "You have one little issue, a mechanical issue on Lando's car, and he's won the race from 21st on the grid." That's eight podiums in a row for Verstappen.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - NOVEMBER 08: Race winner Lando Norris of Great Britain and McLaren, Second placed Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing, Third placed Isack Hadjar of France and Oracle Red Bull Racing and the McLaren trophy delegate celebrate on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace on November 08, 2026 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Hector Vivas - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)
Hadjar, in the other Red Bull, had probably his best day in the car. He started fifth, ran second for a good while, even led briefly when the leaders pitted again, and finished third for a Red Bull double podium. He sounded like he'd had a ball. "I enjoyed the mixed conditions. I enjoyed nearly crashing all the time," he said after the race. Mekies called it "the best race he has done with us in terms of pure pace," which sounds right to me.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - NOVEMBER 08: Third placed Isack Hadjar of France and Oracle Red Bull Racing celebrates on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace on November 08, 2026 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
Mercedes should've won the race too. Russell qualified second on Saturday, then dropped five grid places after an engine change, and he still thinks the team blew pole by aborting his second lap: "Pole was ours for the taking there." He started seventh, made up ground, and then spun backwards on the pit exit after his first stop and brushed the wall getting turned around. "I have no idea what happened on that pit exit. I probably just took too much risk, because I was seeing an opportunity to go for the win at that point, but it happened," he said. Antonelli's afternoon was worse. After the spin that lost him the lead, he ran deep at Turn 1 the next time round and let Hadjar by, went off there again a couple of laps later and fell behind Verstappen too, and he picked up a five-second penalty for an unsafe release at his last stop. He wasn't happy: "I'm very angry, to be fair," he told The Race. "Like, no warning, nothing." Wolff thinks something was wrong with both cars: "George is not someone who spins in the pitlane on the exit, and Kimi the same." Antonelli finished fifth, with the fastest lap of the race.
Still, that's nine titles, which puts Mercedes level with Williams, behind only Ferrari and McLaren, and both of its drivers got through the race to make sure of it. "I'm extremely disappointed with the race, but I'm going to put it aside, because today is a great day for the team," Antonelli said. Wolff kept the credit spread wide ("I always say there are not two superstars, the drivers, but there are 2,500 superstars") and didn't promise anything about the next few years: "I wished it was the era of Mercedes and me running away with another few championships. I don't think it's the reality." Considering how fast Red Bull and McLaren have caught up since the summer, I think he's right to be careful.
Ferrari had a miserable weekend, which was weird, because Hamilton's first lap was brilliant. It was his 400th Grand Prix start, his new engine had failed in final practice, Ferrari fitted a whole new power unit, and he started 20th. He was ninth by the end of the opening lap. Then his intermediates fell apart, he was first to gamble on slicks, and late on he stayed out on slicks when the rain came back and spun. He said he wasn't told it was raining harder in the first half of the lap: "If I'd have known that I would have come in." He still took ninth. "We live and we learn and we move on," he said. Charles Leclerc, who started 14th after an engine penalty of his own, couldn't get any heat into his tyres in the first stint and described it as "just like driving on ice." He passed Lawson for seventh on the penultimate lap, but he'd tapped Lawson's left-rear wheel at Turn 12 while closing in, the stewards gave him five seconds for the contact, and he dropped to eighth. Lawson had his own take on the move: "I feel like it was exactly like his GP2 move in Abu Dhabi, on Albon years ago." I'll leave that one alone.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - NOVEMBER 08: Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain driving the (44) Scuderia Ferrari SF-26 and Oliver Bearman of Great Britain driving the (87) Haas F1 VF-26 Ferrari battle for track position at the race start during the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace on November 08, 2026 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
Behind them, Oscar Piastri was sixth, Lawson got his seventh back after the penalty, and Nico Hülkenberg took the last point for Audi despite a ten-second penalty for passing off the track. Gabriel Bortoleto, who crashed in qualifying and then took new engine parts, came 16th at home. Valtteri Bottas didn't even start. Cadillac couldn't get a cross-threaded wheel nut off his car on the grid, and it was wheeled away. Lance Stroll retired with a battery problem. And there was a debut. Haas confirmed last week that Esteban Ocon won't race for them again this season, after he was benched in Mexico, and with reserve Ryo Hirakawa away on WEC duty, the team gave Rafael Câmara (already signed for next year) his first start at his home race. He crashed in qualifying and finished 20th, but Ayao Komatsu was happy enough: "For Rafa's first race in Formula 1, he obviously had very challenging conditions. He had very good pace, and he kept it clean."
With both titles settled, the fight that's left is for second place in the drivers' standings, and it's a good one. Verstappen's on 279, Russell 262, Hamilton 261, Leclerc 249 and Norris 246. That's five drivers within 33 points with 75 left to win, which works out to three races. And that's only if all three get run. F1 still hasn't confirmed that Qatar (November 29) and Abu Dhabi (December 6) will go ahead because of the conflict in the Middle East, Imola is on standby to step in, and a decision was expected right around now. If the worst happens and nothing replaces them, Las Vegas would be the last race of 2026, with only 25 points left to win.
So let's talk about Vegas. It's 6.201 kilometres (about 3.85 miles) and 50 laps of the Strip, with one of the longest flat-out runs in the sport, and Verstappen holds the lap record, a 1:33.365 from last year. F1 has raced there three times in this era. Verstappen won in 2023, Russell won from pole in 2024, and Verstappen won again last year, after both McLarens got disqualified for worn skid blocks and Antonelli came through from 17th to third. Las Vegas also hosted two Caesars Palace races, and the first one, in 1981, was won by Alan Jones, the 1980 world champion, who died last week at 80. Seems like a fitting place to remember him.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - NOVEMBER 22: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB21 on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Las Vegas at Las Vegas Strip Circuit on November 22, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Zak Mauger/LAT Images)
The big problem in Vegas is the cold. The race starts at night in late November, and Pirelli has taken its C3, C4 and C5 tyres there every year so far, and getting heat into them is always the main challenge. It hasn't named its tyres for this year yet. Norris was already thinking about it in Brazil: "So, I think the scary times are if you go to Vegas and you can't get any tyre temperature." Verstappen had no idea what to expect ("I have no idea because Vegas is so different and so difficult for everyone to understand"), but he did say the energy rules mean slipstreaming down that long straight will matter a lot. "Actually, maybe the track will be a bit like Monza," he said. Fred Vasseur's worried too, since Ferrari couldn't switch its tyres on in Brazil either, and he said the next race "could also present us with very low temperatures." And Cadillac goes home for the last time this year. Marcin Budkowski called it "our final home race of the season in Las Vegas, which will be a special weekend for the team." The American team still doesn't have a point, and one under the Strip lights would go a long way.
Last week's call for Brazil (Verstappen, Antonelli and Hamilton, with an Aston Martin dropping out and points for Bortoleto at home) got Verstappen on the podium and Stroll's retirement right, and not much else. I sure didn't see Verstappen starting from the back. Here's how I see Saturday night, November 21 (lights out at 8 PM local, 11 PM Eastern). Russell takes pole, like he did here in 2024, with Verstappen second and Norris third. Verstappen tucks in behind Russell down the Strip on the opening lap and gets past him at the end of the straight. The front-runners all stop once, around lap 20, mediums to hards, and the hards are slow to come in, so it's close all night. A safety car for a Colapinto crash around lap 30 bunches them up, Russell has one last go at the restart and doesn't get close enough, and Norris holds third after a long fight with Antonelli. That puts Verstappen 24 points clear in the fight for second with two races left, if they happen.
Verstappen, Russell and Norris, in that order.
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