Mexico City GP 2026: Antonelli is champion at 20, Verstappen wins from fifth, and Ferrari throw away a 1-2

Kimi Antonelli is Formula 1's youngest world champion at 20. He needed ninth place in the Mexico City Grand Prix to take the title, whatever his rivals did, and he finished third 1.

Max Verstappen won the race from fifth on the grid, 0.799 seconds clear of Lewis Hamilton. Antonelli came home four seconds behind Hamilton and one place ahead of Charles Leclerc 2.

The race turned on the opening lap. Hamilton started from pole and Leclerc from third, and by the run to Turn 1 the two Ferraris were first and second. There they fought each other through Turns 1 and 4 until both ran off the track, and Verstappen went through into second while they sorted themselves out 1.

Three drivers lost points finishes to penalties after the flag. Oscar Piastri, seventh on the road, dropped to 13th 2.

Five cars failed to finish. Arvid Lindblad went out on lap 58, Oliver Bearman on lap 47 and Valtteri Bottas on lap 42. Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso both stopped on lap 5 2.

Piastri took a 10-second penalty for causing the collision with Lindblad. Franco Colapinto took 10 seconds for failing to slow under yellow flags, and Pierre Gasly lost his ninth place to a 30-second penalty, applied in place of a stop-and-go, for the same offence under double yellows 12.

Those three penalties lifted Lawson to seventh, Bortoleto to eighth, Hadjar to ninth and Hirakawa, on his F1 debut, into the final point 2.

Antonelli arrived in Mexico 123 points clear and needed ninth place, two points, to be sure of the title whatever George Russell and Hamilton did 1. He took 15.

He now has 380 points. Verstappen's 25 moved the Red Bull driver from fourth to second on 261, 119 behind with four rounds left, more than any rival can still score 3.

Russell, second in the championship before the weekend, is fourth on 250 after finishing sixth 4.

At 20 years, 2 months and 7 days, Antonelli takes the record from Sebastian Vettel's 2010 title by three years, two months and four days 4. He is also the first champion to race with No.12 since Ayrton Senna in 1988, and he said he will keep the number next season rather than take No.1 5.

Hamilton's pole was his first for Ferrari, and it came by nine thousandths of a second from Russell. The top five were covered by 0.193 seconds 67.

Hulkenberg reached Q3 for Audi and did not set a time. Colapinto, Piastri, Bortoleto, Bearman, Sainz and Albon went out in Q2; Alonso, Hirakawa, Stroll, Perez and Bottas went out in Q1 6.

Verstappen carried a one-place penalty for a collision in second practice, which put him fifth on the grid and Antonelli fourth 8.

Lawson was disqualified from qualifying for a technical breach, took new power unit components and had his set-up changed under parc fermé, so he started from the pit lane. Bottas started from the back of the grid after taking multiple new power unit components 8.

Verstappen was the only driver in the leading group to start on the medium tyre, and he got away well enough to run third behind the two Ferraris 9.

Russell, second on the grid, lost full deployment on the run to Turn 1 and was swamped before the braking zone, dropping to sixth 19.

Ahead of him, Leclerc attacked Hamilton on the outside at Turn 1, then again at Turn 4. Hamilton went defensive, both ran wide, and Leclerc cut across the grass to come out in front. Hamilton rejoined with a poor exit, which is where Verstappen passed him 1.

The stewards put the Ferrari incident under investigation and gave Leclerc five seconds for gaining an advantage, stopping short of 10 because both drivers had left the track. Russell took 10 seconds for tipping Hadjar into a spin at Turn 6 1.

Hamilton used the radio to say the stewards were "basically handing Charles this win" 1.

Leclerc built a five-second lead by lap 22. Leclerc and Verstappen then stopped on consecutive laps, and Verstappen came out in front because Leclerc had to serve his penalty at the same stop. Verstappen left the pits on softs, told over the radio that he would have to make them last 40 laps 1.

Norris ran as high as second by staying out. On lap 38 Antonelli led him by nine seconds, with Verstappen a further three back. McLaren brought Norris in a lap later for a slow stop and he rejoined fifth 1.

Antonelli was the last of the leaders to stop, on lap 43, and rejoined fourth. Moments later Bottas crashed heavily at Turn 1, his front-left suspension failing under braking and putting him into the barrier 1.

The Safety Car came out and then became a red flag from lap 46 for barrier damage. Bottas got out of the car unaided, answered the radio, and was taken to the medical centre for checks 1.

The stewards set the restart order from the lap before the Safety Car, which reinstated Hamilton in third ahead of Antonelli. Every car in the top ten restarted on new soft tyres, which wiped out the tyre advantage Mercedes had built 110.

Hamilton beat Leclerc off the line, challenged Verstappen into Turn 1, ran out of room and had to settle into second after light contact. Leclerc locked up heavily into Turn 1 on that lap and flat-spotted his tyres, and Antonelli went down his inside on the next lap to take third 1.

Bearman retired in the pits after contact with Hulkenberg at Turn 4, which cost the Audi driver 10 seconds. Verstappen was investigated for an out-of-position start and cleared 1.

A second Safety Car came with eight laps left after Piastri clipped the right rear of Lindblad's Racing Bulls at Turn 1 and put the rookie in the wall. Verstappen got the restart right and kept Hamilton 0.799 seconds behind him to the flag 1.

Mercedes started Antonelli on the soft and kept him out until lap 43. Andrew Shovlin, the team's trackside engineering director, said Antonelli ran the tyre beyond 40 laps and that the long stint gave Mercedes options for the end of the race 9.

"The red flag effectively reset things and removed the tyre advantage we had created," Shovlin said 9.

Red Bull's side of the same sequence was the pit call. Verstappen stopped on the lap after Leclerc and came out ahead once the penalty was served, which is how a driver on a different tyre, in a car he said lacked pace, ended up leading 10.

The red flag also shortened the long soft-tyre stint Verstappen would otherwise have had to manage, though it handed him a standing restart to defend, which he did robustly and, the stewards decided, legally 10.

Leclerc said his pace was "really strong on the first stint" and that the flat spot from the restart made the rest of his race a defensive job. He held Norris off for fourth 9.

Ferrari had the car to win. Hamilton started on pole and Leclerc third, and by the approach to Turn 1 its cars ran first and second. "When you are 1-2 in Turn 4, you don't imagine that you won't win the race," team principal Fred Vasseur said afterwards 11.

Vasseur also said he expects his drivers to show respect for the team and for the 2,000 people working for Ferrari at Maranello 9.

The five seconds cost Leclerc the lead at the stops even though he had built more than five seconds on Verstappen. At the restart he lost second to Hamilton and then third to Antonelli 1.

Leclerc called the penalty "deserved" and said the team would discuss how to avoid the situation again 9. Hamilton said he wanted more from the race and felt he had the pace to win 9.

The Race's writers treated it as the third flashpoint of Ferrari's second half, after a rejected team instruction at Zandvoort and the pair's first-lap contact at Monza. Most of the seven put the greater share on Leclerc for a move he was never going to make cleanly; Jack Benyon argued Hamilton lost the race by running wide. Matt Beer's verdict was the team's: Ferrari had everything in its hands to finish first and second and no plan to keep it 11.

Russell's deployment problem cost him the race before the first corner. He then took a 10-second penalty for the Hadjar contact and finished sixth, and was fined for missing his post-race media duties 910.

"There have been too many occasions this season where we have let George down," said Toto Wolff, Mercedes' head of motorsport 9.

Hadjar had been running fifth on the opening lap when Russell hit him. He came back to 12th on the road and scored two points for ninth after the penalties 10.

Lawson's weekend included a one-place grid penalty for a practice collision with Verstappen, a disqualification from qualifying, and a pit-lane start. He finished seventh 10.

Hirakawa, a double world endurance champion called up by Haas during the weekend, qualified 18th and finished 13th on the road. The penalties gave him a point on what is likely to be his only Formula 1 start 10.

Alpine had both cars in the points on the road and lost both to yellow-flag penalties. That left Racing Bulls 39 points clear of Alpine in the fight for fifth in the constructors' championship 10.

Aston Martin retired both cars within seconds of each other on lap 5. Alonso suggested Honda had underestimated what the altitude would do to its power unit; Honda cited cooling 10.

Sergio Perez ran as high as 13th at his home race before a slow first stop caused by a wheelgun problem and a pit-lane speeding penalty. He finished 16th 10.

Sixteen points cover second to fifth. Verstappen's win took him past both Hamilton and Russell, and Leclerc is 14 behind Hamilton 3.

The constructors' championship is still open too. Mercedes leads Ferrari by 126 points, with 43 available to a team at each of the four remaining rounds. A gain of four points over Ferrari in Sao Paulo would put the title beyond reach 4.

Red Bull moved 17 points clear of McLaren for third. Twenty-four points separate Haas in seventh from Aston Martin in tenth 4.

The paddock moves to Interlagos for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix on 6-8 November, the 20th of 23 rounds and a normal weekend rather than a Sprint 1213.

The race runs 71 laps of the 4.309km circuit on Sunday 8 November 13.

Mercedes needs four more points than Ferrari there to add the constructors' title to Antonelli's drivers' crown. Second place is still open: 16 points cover Verstappen in second and Leclerc in fifth 3.