Marco Rossi · F1 Correspondent
A weekend that began with Ferrari on top and ended with the drivers' title for Andrea Kimi Antonelli, before post-race penalties reshuffled the midfield once more.
Max Verstappen won the Mexico City Grand Prix at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on Sunday from fifth on the grid, having qualified fourth before a penalty from second practice dropped him one place. Behind him, Andrea Kimi Antonelli clinched the drivers' title early with third place and, at 20, became the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history. Between first practice around midday on Friday and the checkered flag on Sunday lay a weekend with three different faces: Ferrari ruled practice, a Ferrari narrowly took pole, and the race turned the picture around once more, with consequences reaching far beyond the podium.
Ferrari rules practice before qualifying paints a new picture
Charles Leclerc topped both first and second practice, confirming that Ferrari set the benchmark from the start at the high-altitude circuit in the Mexican capital. In third practice on Saturday morning McLaren briefly took over at the top, with Lando Norris just 0.001 seconds ahead of Antonelli and 0.117 seconds ahead of Leclerc, a sign of how tightly the front of the field had already closed up before grid positions were even at stake.
Qualifying flipped the picture again: Lewis Hamilton took pole with a 1:16.514, just 0.009 seconds ahead of George Russell and 0.119 seconds ahead of his Ferrari teammate Leclerc, who had dominated practice but had to settle for third on Saturday. Verstappen lined up fourth in the Red Bull, 0.178 seconds off pole, but had to serve a grid penalty for his collision with Liam Lawson in second practice and started Sunday's race from fifth. On paper that was a setback, but the race would show that Saturday's raw lap time said little about race pace.
Race pace beats grid position: How Verstappen and Red Bull turned things around
That Red Bull had only managed fourth in qualifying, and that the penalty even pushed Verstappen back to fifth, turned out to be a footnote in the race. Verstappen worked his way forward and took the lead during the race, holding on to it through a red flag and a late Safety Car period. For Red Bull it was confirmation that the tenths missing in qualifying could be recovered in race trim.
For Ferrari, the overall impression of the weekend remains mixed. The Scuderia had two of the three practice sessions and pole position in the bag, but lost most of that advantage in the race: Hamilton finished second, while Leclerc came home only fourth after a penalty. Both Ferrari drivers thus lost one place compared with qualifying, a modest step back next to what happened in the midfield. In the drivers' standings the big decision has been made with Antonelli on 380 points, but behind him Verstappen (261), Hamilton (259), Russell (250) and Leclerc (245) are still locked in a tight fight for second place in the championship, with Verstappen moving to the head of that group thanks to his win in Mexico City.
Midfield and back of the field: Hirakawa's first point and a classification rewritten by the stewards
The biggest changes to the classification came only after the checkered flag. On Sunday evening the stewards handed out three penalties that reshuffled the result from seventh place down: Oscar Piastri received ten seconds for the collision with Arvid Lindblad and dropped from seventh to 13th, while Franco Colapinto was also given ten seconds for failing to slow sufficiently under yellow flags and slipped from eighth to 15th. His Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly was hit even harder: for the same offense under double yellows, his stop-and-go penalty was converted into 30 seconds after the race, 17th instead of tenth.
The biggest winner of these decisions was Ryō Hirakawa. The Japanese driver, who stood in for Esteban Ocon at Haas and contested his first Formula 1 race in Mexico City, started 18th, took the checkered flag in 13th and was ultimately classified tenth, a championship point on his Grand Prix debut. Isack Hadjar, whom Russell had spun around on the opening lap, earning the Mercedes driver a time penalty, moved up from 12th to ninth and salvaged two points. Gabriel Bortoleto inherited eighth place and four points for Audi. And Liam Lawson, who started from the pit lane after being disqualified from qualifying, finished seventh, six points from a starting position that could hardly have been worse.
On the other side of the ledger is Nico Hülkenberg, who started tenth and ended up 14th after a ten-second penalty for his collision with Oliver Bearman. Bearman, who had started 14th, retired after 47 laps as a result of the incident. Lindblad, who had started eighth, also failed to finish after the contact with Piastri, his race ending after 58 laps. Sergio Pérez worked his way up from 20th on the grid to 16th in front of his home crowd but stayed out of the points. The back of the field was eventful too: Valtteri Bottas retired after 42 laps with suspension damage, and Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll parked their Aston Martins after just five laps, a disappointing weekend for a team that had already qualified both cars at the back of the field.
The championship after Mexico City: settled at the front, open behind
With Antonelli's title, the drivers' championship is decided with four races to go, while the constructors' standings are still very much in motion. Mercedes leads with 630 points ahead of Ferrari on 504, putting the title within reach for the Silver Arrows, though it is not yet mathematically secured. Oracle Red Bull Racing on 382 and McLaren on 365 points are fighting for third, with 17 points now separating them after Verstappen's win and Piastri's post-race penalty. Further back, Racing Bulls (108) lead Alpine (69) in the midfield of the teams' standings, while Haas, Audi, Williams and Aston Martin have only scored sporadically so far and Cadillac is still without a point in its first season.
For the paddock, the Mexico City weekend therefore delivers two stories at once: one that has already been written with Antonelli's coronation, and a second that will only be decided over the remaining four races. The fight for second place in the drivers' standings, with just 16 points between Verstappen and Leclerc, looks set to become one of the most compelling side stories of the rest of the season.
