Five Winners, Five Losers: Mexico City Grand Prix
A new champion was crowned over a box-office weekend in Mexico City, but who else got caught up in the drama?
Winner: Kimi Antonelli
It was a day well in the making, but Formula One finally has its 36th world champion.
While his triumph in Austin may have been a more blockbuster way to seal the title, Kimi Antonelli's typically shrewd Mexico City performance encapsulated why he was so far ahead in this year’s championship.
The Italian is way out in front in terms of race victories with nine wins, but the fact he has the second-most second-placed finishes (behind Max Verstappen) and the most third-placed finishes this season shows that even on the weekends he has not won, he has more often than not been right there hammering home his points advantage.
It was his fourth third-place finish of the season that sealed the deal in the end, coming after an unremarkable race for the most part of which he looked destined to finish where he had started in fourth place.
As a chaotic race unfolded around him, Antonelli, as usual, kept himself far away from any danger and managed to nab the final podium spot from Charles Leclerc following the restart on Lap 46.
The Mercedes driver briefly considered attacking the pair ahead of him, but made the mature decision to hold position – a concept Charles Leclerc would do well to learn from – to come home behind the legendary duo of Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton to complete a fitting podium trio.
All in all, it was the right way for Antonelli to be welcomed into the exclusive club of world champions as he became Italy’s first since 1953.
Not only that, but at 20 years and 68 days old the man from Bologna obliterated Sebastian Vettel’s record as the youngest world champion by over three years. As the calendar has expanded in recent years to make records concerning race wins, poles, points tallies and more easier to chase, that is one that looks unlikely to budge for a very long time.
Winner: Max Verstappen
While Antonelli may only just have wrapped the title up and won’t even see his trophy for another few weeks, it is already clear who his main challenger will be when he comes to defend his crown next year.
Just a few months ago, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull career was on the precipice, with the Dutchman outspoken in his disillusionment both with the 2026 regulations more widely and also with his new machinery.
The four-time champion was a distant seventh in the standings for the first phase of the season, before Red Bull finally got their heads around their new Ford power unit around the time of the Austrian Grand Prix in June.
Since then, Verstappen has not finished a race off the podium, won three of the last four races, and has scored just 18 points fewer than Antonelli.
The weekend in Mexico didn’t start particularly well for the Dutchman, as he and Liam Lawson were both deservedly penalised for a ridiculous tussle in Friday’s FP2 session. His pace wasn’t particularly glowing either, as both he and teammate Isack Hadjar complained about the Red Bull’s balance right up until Qualifying.
Starting fifth following his grid penalty and seemingly not in contention, it took just five corners for Verstappen to turn his fortunes for the weekend on their head as he carved through the pack to take the net lead behind a penalised Leclerc. From there, his biggest obstacle to victory was a fiery Lewis Hamilton at the race restart, whom he covered off in his trademark no-nonsense style.
As all the greats do, it is rare for Verstappen to add another victory without creating some extra history along the way, and his 74th career win was no different. Lap 48 in Mexico City was the 4000th lap he has led in his career, while a first victory from fifth means he has now won from a record-extending 11 different grid slots.
As was the case when he won last year’s season finale in Abu Dhabi while Lando Norris claimed the title, his victory in Mexico was overshadowed by the new world champion. However, Verstappen again proved that no matter who is wearing the crown, he is still the high watermark everybody else must aim for.
Winner: Ryo Hirakawa
A surprise inclusion in this week’s list is two-time WEC champion and former Le Mans 24-Hour winner Ryo Hirakawa, who made his F1 debut for Haas in place of Esteban Ocon under bizarre circumstances.
The Japanese driver had taken part in nine FP1 sessions for three different teams (McLaren, Alpine and Haas) since Abu Dhabi in 2024, but finally got his big break as Ocon was relegated from his seat after FP2.
Hirakawa is of course no slouch behind the wheel, and had also deputised for the Frenchman in FP1 at the start of the weekend, but his promotion to the race seat with just a few hours’ notice was always going to be a task, whatever the circumstances.
F1’s oldest debutant since 2014 was instantly at the races, though, and was just three tenths shy of making Q2 in Saturday’s qualifying session after encountering traffic in the high-speed Esses.
Sunday was on the whole rather quiet for Hirakawa, but he navigated two race starts, kept everything clean, and remained in touch with his rivals at the rear of the pack.
What was set to be an anonymous finish way down the order soon turned out rather differently, with accidents for teammate Ollie Bearman and Arvid Lindblad promoting Hirakawa to 13th by the flag.
An unprecedented three post-race penalties to both Alpines and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri meant further places to be gained, and hours after the end of the race he found himself a F1 point-scorer by finishing in 10th.
Hirakawa may well compete in the final WEC race of the season at Monza this weekend as he looks to add his third endurance crown, but it is certainly possible that the 32-year-old will be called upon again by Haas between now and the end of the year.
Winner: Lewis Hamilton
This one takes some justification given that Lewis Hamilton himself was clearly furious with the outcome of the Mexico City Grand Prix, which he felt was snatched from him by the over-aggressiveness of Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc on the opening lap.
The Brit’s frustration was vindicated by the fact that the stewards deemed Leclerc enough at fault to give the Monégasque driver a five-second penalty, but he remained forthright in his criticism of his teammate after the race.
While it is true that Hamilton likely would have won the race had he held the lead through Lap 1, and while it is the case that he missed the opportunity to go second in the drivers’ standings, his weekend performance in Mexico City has arguably left his stock at an all-time high since his move to the Scuderia.
The 41-year-old began the weekend by asserting that “Formula One hasn’t had anyone like me”, in the context of his plans to remain on the scene until 2030 and the inaugural African Grand Prix.
True to his word, Hamilton became the oldest pole-sitter since Mario Andretti in 1982 as one of the only leading contenders not to make a mistake on his final lap in Q3.
Hamilton may have gone on to lose the battle on Sunday, but he may yet win the war. His very public observation that Ferrari failed to maximise their result through poor intra-team discipline highlighted an issue that has been apparent to outsiders for some time, and may yet instil some change in the culture of a team that continues to shoot itself in the foot week after week.
In any event, the seven-time champion leaves Mexico with credit in the bank and is on course to finish ahead of Leclerc over the entirety of the season, which will only strengthen his voice within the team.
Winner: Liam Lawson
On a weekend when everything seemed to go wrong right up until the chequered flag, Liam Lawson’s seventh-placed finish for Racing Bulls defied any sort of logic.
The Kiwi was penalised for his skirmish with Max Verstappen in FP2, a moment he may yet regret as he waits to be offered a new contract with Red Bull’s junior team for 2027, before he was then disqualified from qualifying after being found to be "in breach of the minimum MGU-K power requirement just after crossing the line on his fastest lap in Q2".
Racing Bulls Team Principal Alan Permane confirmed that the technical infringement was a result of driver error.
What would have been P9 on the grid ultimately became a pit lane start as changes were made to his set-up under parc fermé.
Even during the race, the tide seemed against Lawson as he made his second pit stop moments before the red flag was thrown after Valtteri Bottas’s huge shunt on Lap 44.
Only after the restart did his fortunes improve, as the Kiwi went on a charge to reach ninth by the chequered flag. The big beneficiary of post-race penalties to Piastri and Colapinto directly ahead of him, Lawson’s eventual seventh place was testament to his never-say-die attitude and added to his growing list of standout performances this season.
Loser: Esteban Ocon
Have we seen Esteban Ocon race in F1 for the final time? There is a very strong chance that the answer to that question is yes.
The Frenchman had been set for his 199th start in F1, which would have moved him level with legendary compatriot Alain Prost. For the time being, though, and perhaps indefinitely, he will be poised on 198.
Ocon was prophetically replaced in FP1 by Ryo Hirakawa, as the Japanese driver utilised one of Haas’ four mandatory reserve driver sessions for the season.
When he stepped back into the car for FP2, one particular radio exchange with engineer Laura Müller, in which he questioned the team’s decision to change his run plan mid-session, began to circulate as the likely beginning of a clearly irreparable falling out.
Reported rifts between driver and team following the session, which led to Ocon denying reports of physical violence, led Haas to make the unprecedented decision to promote Hirakawa for the rest of the weekend. Team Principal Ayao Komatsu was tight-lipped following the announcement, but stressed that the Frenchman’s absence was not due to illness.
Coming against the backdrop of Ocon’s departure from Haas in four races’ time, it certainly seems unlikely he will return to his seat for the remainder of the season. It is not the first time he has failed to see out his final few races with a team, after Alpine replaced him with reserve driver Jack Doohan for the final race of the 2024 season.
Furthermore, given Ocon’s strained relationship with then teammate Fernando Alonso and previous comings together with Force India teammate Sergio Pérez, he is not necessarily an asset other teams in the paddock will be itching to get a hold of.
It is a shame for the former race winner’s ten-year stay in the sport to end so abruptly, but the trail of destruction that has followed him since those early Force India days does appear to have caught up with him.
Loser: Charles Leclerc
It is fair to say that Charles Leclerc will not have made many friends at Ferrari on Sunday afternoon.
The Monégasque driver had been the man to beat, as he often is, across Friday Practice, but could not translate that pace into pole position on Saturday.
Starting third behind his teammate and Russell and with impressive race pace to rely upon, Leclerc was well-poised for Sunday’s race.
However, his overly aggressive attack on Hamilton for the lead on the opening lap proved the decisive moment for his team’s hopes of a 1-2 finish.
Leclerc would of course have been entitled to make a move for the lead had there genuinely been an opportunity, but his move at Turn 4 (following a similarly reckless move at Turn 2) was very poorly calculated and allowed Verstappen through for a victory that almost certainly otherwise would have been Ferrari’s.
The stewards weren’t best pleased, as they handed him an arguably lenient five-second penalty, while Hamilton was furious.
The common assertion that Leclerc races his teammate harder than anybody else is difficult to support with statistics, but to the naked eye it is hard to disagree. Just a few races ago at Monza he forced Hamilton into the gravel at Turn 1, bumping the Brit down to tenth, while his defence against the sister car in China back in March was similarly poor teamwork.
Hamilton is certainly of a similar view, as he described the Monégasque’s mentality after the race as “either I win, or none of us does”.
The Brit’s ire at Ferrari’s “big, big problems” will now kickstart difficult conversations within the team and will surely provoke some introspection from Leclerc.
For a man who Hamilton himself has previously described as “Mr Ferrari”, the idea of racing for the team rather than himself does at times seem a surprisingly alien concept.
Loser: Fernando Alonso
As wretched as 2026 has been for Fernando Alonso, the Spaniard reached new depths of despair in Mexico City.
With the altitude of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez serving as an equaliser with regard to engine power, Alonso’s Aston Martin looked good for a second straight Q2 appearance after showing competitive pace throughout practice.
However, a terminal water pressure issue in Q1 stopped Alonso’s hopes dead in their tracks, and so disappointed was the two-time world champion that he said he hoped to skip the race and fly straight to Brazil.
He may as well have done, as both he and teammate Lance Stroll were told to box on Lap 6 to retire their cars with engine problems.
Loser: Oscar Piastri
Just a week on from a poor race in Austin, Oscar Piastri’s fortunes were not for changing in Mexico City.
The McLaren driver did not fit a new set of softs for his final lap in Q2, despite already being in the bottom six, and was only able to muster 12th on the grid for his worst start since qualifying 17th at the same event in 2024.
The Australian made up places at the start of Sunday’s race to spend most of his afternoon in seventh, before losing out to Arvid Lindblad on the race restart.
Piastri’s attempt to retake the position on Lap 59 led to tyre to tyre contact which speared Lindblad into the barrier, while the Australian lost over a second a lap in performance after losing his barge board and just about held off Colapinto to the chequered flag.
The stewards were not persuaded by Piastri’s account of the collision, though, and felt he merited a ten-second penalty for his part in it which dropped him to 13th in the final classification.
That demotion meant that, for the first time since the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix, Piastri failed to make the top ten in either Qualifying or the race.
Loser: George Russell
While post-race penalties to both Alpine drivers cost the team a double-points finish, the five points they lost out on are unlikely to have any bearing on either championship by the end of the season.
George Russell’s miserable race was potentially far more consequential.
Another poor race for the Brit on the weekend that his teammate deservedly won the drivers’ title is not quite the attention-grabber that it would have been earlier in the year. However, the Mexico City Grand Prix was almost as miserable as it has been for Russell this season.
The Mercedes man fell agonisingly short of pole position by just nine milliseconds and was well set for the start with the longest run to Turn 1 on the calendar ahead of him.
As was the case in Spa, though, Russell’s battery didn’t want to play, and after his initial launch was swallowed up by the field on the 800-metre run to the first braking zone.
It is understandable, really, that the Mercedes driver considered a cheeky move on Isack Hadjar into Turn 6 to regain at least one position, but in doing so he sent the Frenchman into a spin and was handed an unarguable ten-second penalty.
Having served that time in the pits, the restart following Bottas’ crash gave Russell a lifeline to recover from sixth, but he failed to capitalise and stayed put to the chequered flag.
After congratulating Antonelli on the title in parc fermé, he neglected to stick around at the track and forewent his media obligations after the race.
Russell now occupies fourth in the championship behind Verstappen and Hamilton, his season falling apart with just 14 points in the last four races.
Edited by Marit Everett
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