Top photo: AUSTIN, TEXAS - OCTOBER 25: Race winner Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team celebrates on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of United States at Circuit of The Americas on October 25, 2026 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
Kimi Antonelli did his part in Austin. He took pole, led into Turn 1, won by 13.078 seconds on a one-stop strategy, and he still has to wait a week to be world champion. George Russell finished eighth and Lewis Hamilton fourth, and that was one place too good from each of them, so there was no coronation at the Circuit of the Americas. Antonelli goes to Mexico City with 365 points and a 123-point lead. Toto Wolff took the 99.9 percent figure a reporter offered him: "So I'm happy that, like you say, 99.9%."
Mercedes didn't see that win coming on Friday. "After Friday, I don't think any of us expected to be standing here with the win, so to turn the weekend around like this is really special," Antonelli said in the team's statement. By Saturday he'd found enough to take pole with a 1:34.035, 0.179 seconds clear of Verstappen, with Isack Hadjar third and Leclerc fourth. He didn't have a fresh set of softs left for the race. "We didn't have any new Softs, so the new Medium was the only choice we really had, or the Hard," he explained in the press conference, and the medium wasn't great either. He kept the lead into Turn 1 anyway, had almost three seconds in hand by lap 10, and then Mercedes made the call that won the race.
AUSTIN, TEXAS - OCTOBER 25: Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy driving the (12) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team W17 leads the field into turn one at the start during the F1 Grand Prix of United States at Circuit of The Americas on October 25, 2026 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
While Verstappen and Leclerc pitted twice, Mercedes kept Antonelli out on the medium and stopped him once, at the end of lap 24, for hards. He came out fourth and worked his way back up as the two-stoppers came in, and once Verstappen made his second stop at the end of lap 31, Antonelli needed only half a lap to pass Leclerc into the Turn 12 braking zone for the lead. After that, he was gone. Antonelli gave the credit to the strategists, who he said "trusted in the one stop" from the start. Leclerc admitted Ferrari never really considered it: "Mercedes, though, saw something that maybe Red Bull and I didn't really consider seriously, which was the one-stop and they made it work very nicely." Wolff called it "The race of a champion" and then admitted Antonelli "isn't the champion yet."
It was his ninth win of the season, and Wolff rated it his best: "For me, the best race that he's delivered so far." He also said, "So I think he's outperformed the car." Coming from the man who runs the car, you won't hear higher praise for a 20-year-old leading the championship. Antonelli sounded like he'd heard enough of the title talk before he even got to the track: "I'm not going to lie, on Thursday there was a lot of talk about the championship and stuff, and I just tried not to worry about that at all and just tried to deliver the best result I could." That's a pretty calm way for a second-year driver to handle a title that's almost his.
Leclerc took second, passing Verstappen into Turn 12 with seven laps to go, and set the fastest lap (a 1:37.976) along the way, though he sounded torn about it. "I even thought the victory was possible at one point when I saw Kimi going for the one-stop," he said, before conceding, "He was just too quick today." That's back-to-back second places for him after Singapore, and Fred Vasseur seemed to like being annoyed: "And when you do P2 and you target P1, you are not happy. But this I like as a feeling." Hamilton was fourth, about a second off the podium, and he blamed the late virtual safety car (which slows the whole field to a set pace), called when Valtteri Bottas's Cadillac stopped, for killing his charge at Verstappen: "Without the VSC late on, I believe we'd have had a real shot at a double podium."
AUSTIN, TEXAS - OCTOBER 25: Race winner Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, Second placed Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Scuderia Ferrari and Third placed Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing celebrate on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of United States at Circuit of The Americas on October 25, 2026 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
Verstappen's third place came out of a race he couldn't stand. His car picked up debris damage around lap 8, Red Bull pitted him twice, for another set of softs and then mediums, he had a slow pit stop, and his radio failed for the second race running... this time with Tom Hart on the other end, standing in for GianPiero Lambiase. "Maybe we should just start communicating in sign language. It's probably cheaper as well. It's a disaster," Verstappen said in the press conference. He still got past Lando Norris into Turn 1 on lap 47 ("It was either get overtaken or you have to go for the overtakes"), but his summary was blunt: "I think we were just a little bit average in the race." Hadjar, who was told to let Verstappen through and then got stuck on the wrong engine map after his stop, finished sixth and was even angrier about his start: "It needs a redesign. That's it. The clutch. It's too fragile. It's not coping well with temperatures. It's a real struggle."
AUSTIN, TEXAS - OCTOBER 25: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (3) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB22 Red Bull Ford Powertrains and Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Scuderia Ferrari SF-26 battle for track position at the race start during the F1 Grand Prix of United States at Circuit of The Americas on October 25, 2026 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Russell and Hamilton both kept the title alive, but Russell's afternoon was the messier one. He started sixth, went off at Turn 12 on the opening lap while fighting Oscar Piastri, and got a five-second penalty for gaining an advantage (the stewards said it'd normally be ten, but they took the lap-one chaos into account). He served it at his only stop and then spent the last 26 laps stuck behind Piastri, finishing 1.6 seconds back in eighth. "The pace was rubbish. That's the long and short of it," he told Sky Sports F1, and he wasn't any happier in the media pen: "Probably did six laps from the 50 that the pace was okay." Wolff blamed how hard the car is to set up: "George just struggled so much. And I believe this is because the operational window of the car is so difficult." Russell's second in the standings now, one point ahead of Hamilton, 242 to 241.
Norris was fifth and Piastri seventh after McLaren swapped them early, and Liam Lawson and Pierre Gasly took the last two points-paying places. Three cars didn't make it to the flag. Bottas's Cadillac let go under braking for Turn 1, and his description was better than anything I could write: "I got this sound of like, if you can imagine, putting nuts and bolts in a blender, which is not great." Franco Colapinto's Alpine broke its floor and sidepod in contact with Arvid Lindblad going up the hill to Turn 1 (he said he got squeezed with Gasly coming out of the pits on his inside), his third retirement in four Grands Prix. Oliver Bearman got a ten-second penalty for hitting Gasly at Turn 13 and then parked his damaged Haas, insisting, "In my view, it was a racing incident." Sergio Pérez finished 19th, a lap down, at Cadillac's home race, and team boss Marcin Budkowski didn't pretend otherwise: "Today presented a challenging race and we wanted to deliver a stronger result in front of our home fans." The Race put the three-day crowd at 467,000.
So what does Antonelli need in Mexico? Less than you'd think. There are five races left and no sprints, so 125 points are still out there, and 100 will be left once Mexico City is done. Antonelli has 365, Russell 242 and Hamilton 241. Verstappen (236) and Leclerc (233) are already out of it mathematically; even five straight wins wouldn't get either of them to 365. That leaves two names. If Antonelli finishes ninth or better on Sunday, he's champion, full stop, whatever anyone else does. If he finishes tenth, he's champion unless Russell wins the race. If he doesn't score at all, he's champion unless Russell or Hamilton wins it. A tie on points goes to whoever has more wins, and with nine already, he can't lose that count. Mercedes could wrap up the constructors' title in Mexico as well; it leads Ferrari 607 to 474, and Sky worked out that Mercedes would need to outscore Ferrari by 39 points on Sunday to do it.
Wolff's got the party planned either way. "He still needs to finish the race in Mexico. So it's either going to be a big tequila party, or if it's not a tequila party, then it's going to be caipirinha the weekend afterwards…" he told F1.com. (Technically Antonelli doesn't even need to finish, as long as neither Russell nor Hamilton wins.) Antonelli hasn't changed his tune: "I mean, I'm going to approach it with the same mindset, just trying to have as much fun as possible, trying to hopefully fight for another win." If he does it, he'll be 20 years and 68 days old, more than three years younger than Sebastian Vettel was when he won the 2010 title, and Italy's first world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953. The schedule question hasn't gone away (F1's still saying Qatar and Abu Dhabi are on, with Imola standing by), but FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem was about as firm as he could be: "I can only tell you today that there is nothing and the two races are going to happen." All of that assumes the last five races go ahead as planned, and if one got dropped, his job would only get easier.
The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is a strange place to try to wrap up a title. It's 2.674 miles with 17 corners, run over 71 laps, about 2,285 metres above sea level. Mercedes reckons the air's around 25 percent thinner up there. That costs downforce and cooling, it makes the power units work harder, so teams bolt on big wings and the cars still slide around. Pirelli's bringing its three softest tyres (C3, C4 and C5), DRS is gone under the 2026 rules (drivers now get an extra electrical boost for passing, and the front and rear wings open up on the straights for everyone), and the long run down to Turn 1 is still where most of the passing happens before the field threads through the old baseball stadium. Valtteri Bottas still holds the lap record, a 1:17.774 from 2021. Piastri sounded worried already: "Looking ahead to Mexico, we will review what we can from here to take into the weekend, where the combination of low grip and high altitude may prove tricky for us."
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - OCTOBER 26: Lando Norris of Great Britain driving the (4) McLaren MCL39 Mercedes leads Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain driving the (44) Scuderia Ferrari SF-25 and Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Scuderia Ferrari SF-25 as Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB21 runs wide at the start during the F1 Grand Prix of Mexico at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on October 26, 2025 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Bryn Lennon - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)
History points two ways. Verstappen's won here five times (2017, 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023), more than anyone, but Red Bull hasn't won it since 2023; Carlos Sainz won for Ferrari in 2024 and Norris won from pole last year, with Leclerc second and Verstappen third. Antonelli was sixth there as a rookie last year. Can he do better with the title on the line? He won't need to. Lambiase is due back on Verstappen's radio for this one before Hart takes Brazil and Las Vegas, which might fix at least one of Red Bull's problems. Leclerc reckons Ferrari can still win a race this year: "Whether it's in Singapore or here in Austin, we were quite close, so I'm confident that we'll have a shot to win a race before the end of the season." Russell's message to himself was simpler: "I need to come back stronger for Mexico."
And then there's Checo. Mexico City will be Pérez's 300th Grand Prix, at home, in a Cadillac that still doesn't have a point, on the weekend of Día de Muertos. He's doing a show run on Paseo de la Reforma on Wednesday, and in Cadillac's announcement he sounded like a man who knows how rare this is: "Reaching 300 Grands Prix is a proud milestone in my career, and there's no better place to start that celebration than back on the streets of Mexico City with the fans who have supported me every step of the way." Three-day crowds have topped 400,000 for three years running (401,326 last year), and I'd bet a good chunk of them will be wearing Cadillac gear this time. Would a point for Pérez be the story of the weekend? It would be the second-biggest, at least.
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - OCTOBER 26: Fans of Sergio Perez of Mexico and Cadillac Formula 1 Team in a grandstand during the F1 Grand Prix of Mexico at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on October 26, 2025 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Peter Fox/Getty Images)
My Austin call (Verstappen from pole, Antonelli second, Leclerc third and a Bortoleto retirement) came out almost exactly backwards, though I did get the part about the title waiting for Mexico, so take this one with whatever salt you like. Here's how I see Sunday, November 1 (lights out at 2 PM local, 3 PM Eastern, with US clocks going back that morning). Leclerc takes pole on Saturday, because Ferrari's finished second in each of the last two races and Leclerc was second here last year, with Antonelli second and Verstappen third. Leclerc holds the inside on the long run to Turn 1, Antonelli doesn't take a risk he doesn't need to, and the order settles by the stadium. Mercedes tries the same one-stop trick around lap 30, Ferrari covers it this time, and Antonelli settles into second, out of trouble, for the rest of the afternoon while Verstappen holds off Hamilton for third. Hadjar's my retirement pick: Red Bull hasn't fixed the clutch he was so angry about in Austin, and he's out before half-distance. Russell finishes fifth, which won't change a thing, because second place makes Antonelli the youngest world champion in the history of the sport... and Wolff gets his tequila party.
Leclerc, Antonelli and Verstappen, in that order.
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