Verstappen won the Mexico City Grand Prix from fifth on the grid, 0.799 s ahead of Hamilton, with Antonelli third, 4.006 s back. Three drivers led: Leclerc for the first 27 laps, Antonelli for the next 16, Verstappen for the last 28. Verstappen made one stop, on lap 27, and then, like 17 of the 19 cars still running, took a free set of softs when the race was stopped on lap 45 and restarted from a standing start on lap 46. The race was dry, 22°C to 25°C in the air and a track that reached 50°C, and it was slowed by a Virtual Safety Car on laps 7 and 8, a Safety Car on lap 44, a 39-minute red flag, and a second Safety Car on laps 59 to 62.
Race trace, full race: every driver's position, lap by lap.
Saturday: pole by 0.009 s
Norris topped the last practice on 1:17.600, one thousandth ahead of Antonelli, with Leclerc 0.117 s back. In Q3 Leclerc set the first marker, 1:16.647 with 9 min 30 s to go, and Verstappen's 1:16.692 lined up behind it on the first runs. The last two minutes turned it over. Russell took provisional pole with 1:16.523 with 63 seconds left, and Hamilton answered with 1:16.514 with 46 seconds to go, pole by nine thousandths. Corner by corner, Hamilton was 0.025 s up after the first sector, Russell took 0.022 s back through the middle sector, and Hamilton found 0.006 s in the stadium section. Leclerc crossed the line as the flag fell for 1:16.633 and third. Verstappen's first-run time held fourth, and Antonelli's 1:16.707, set after the flag, was fifth.
Q1 was stopped by a red flag after Alonso crashed at Turn 14. Piastri went out in Q2, 13th. Hirakawa, in his first race weekend, was 19th in Q1, 0.875 s behind Bearman. Three penalties moved the grid: Verstappen one place for a collision in second practice, to fifth; Lawson disqualified from qualifying over the MGU-K power requirement but permitted to start, to 22nd, and he took the start from the pit lane; Bottas 50 places for power unit elements, to 21st.
Qualifying trace, Q1 to Q3: each driver's best lap stepping down as the clock runs out.
Lap 1: two penalties and a new leader
Russell, second on the grid, lost three places on the run to the first corners, to Leclerc, Antonelli and Verstappen. Leclerc was second behind Hamilton by Turn 1 and took the lead around Turn 4. The stewards noted a Turn 4 incident between the two and later gave Leclerc five seconds for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Verstappen went from fifth to second by the end of the lap. Hadjar had climbed from seventh to fifth, with Russell behind him; at Turn 6 Hadjar dropped from fifth to last, and the stewards gave Russell ten seconds for causing a collision there. Both notes were issued a few laps later, on laps 3 and 4, but our position feed puts both incidents on the opening lap.
The order after lap 1 was Leclerc, Verstappen, Hamilton, Antonelli, Russell, Lindblad, Colapinto, Norris. Norris had lost two places, Piastri had gained three from 12th, Pérez six from 20th. The VSC on laps 7 and 8 came with Hadjar's first stop; our feed does not give its cause.
Leclerc's 27 laps, and the stop that ended them
Leclerc started on softs, Verstappen on mediums, and Leclerc pulled away slowly: 0.7 s after lap 1, 3.0 s after lap 10, 4.8 s after lap 20, 4.6 s when both came in on lap 27. Verstappen's stop took 22.5 s in the pit lane; Leclerc's took 28.7 s, because the five seconds from lap 1 were served in the box. Leclerc rejoined 1.6 s behind. He had led every lap to that point and did not lead again. Hamilton, 2.8 s behind Verstappen before the stops, pitted a lap later for mediums and dropped to sixth while the field cycled through.
Antonelli's 43 laps on one set
Antonelli stayed out on the softs he started on and led from lap 28 to lap 43, the longest stint of the race. His lap times held around 1:21.5 with no drop-off, but Verstappen, on softs that were 16 laps younger, closed from 16.4 s behind after lap 28 to 4.0 s after lap 43. Antonelli pitted for mediums at the end of lap 43 and came out fourth. By our timing his stop was complete about a minute before Bottas stopped on track and the Safety Car was called on lap 44, so it was not a Safety Car stop, whatever our race-day captions said. Verstappen now led, and Hamilton, Russell, Gasly and Piastri all stopped under the Safety Car at the end of lap 44. On lap 45 the race was stopped. It stayed stopped for 39 minutes.
Under the red flag every team could change tyres for free. Seventeen of the nineteen cars still running took new softs. Piastri and Pérez did not. The resumption order was Verstappen, Leclerc, Hamilton, Antonelli, with a standing start on lap 46.
The restart: 26 laps, everyone on the same tyre
Verstappen kept the lead off the line. The stewards noted him out of position at the start and a Turn 1 moment with Hamilton on the first racing lap, and took no action on either. Hamilton passed Leclerc on that lap for second and crossed the line 1.1 s behind Verstappen; Antonelli passed Leclerc a lap later for third. From there the gap at the front never left a narrow band under green: 0.9 s after Hamilton's fastest lap of the race, 1:19.268 on lap 50, 1.5 s on lap 53, 0.9 s again on lap 66, 0.8 s at the flag. Verstappen's best was 1:19.328 on the same lap 50, Antonelli's 1:19.427 on lap 64. Lap for lap, our pace comparison has Verstappen quicker on 32 of the laps they shared and Hamilton on 25.
Verstappen against Hamilton: lap times coloured by tyre, with the stints drawn under the title.
Hülkenberg was given ten seconds for causing a collision at Turn 4 on the restart lap, where he fell from 11th to 15th, and served it at a stop on lap 59; he crossed the line 16th (14th in the final classification). Pérez got five seconds for speeding in the pit lane during the stoppage and served it at the same Safety Car. That second Safety Car came on lap 59, when Lindblad, running seventh, stopped after a Turn 2 incident with Piastri. The stewards examined it after the race and gave Piastri ten seconds (below). Bearman had stopped on lap 48, two laps after the restart; Stroll and Alonso had both been out since lap 5.
Behind the podium
Leclerc finished fourth, 10.7 s back, and Norris fifth from sixth on the grid, on one stop after 39 laps on his first softs. Russell served his ten seconds at his lap-33 stop, which took 34.0 s, stopped again under the first Safety Car, and finished sixth, half a second behind Norris. Piastri went from 12th to seventh on the road with nine on-track passes, two stops on laps 26 and 44, and 27 laps on the softs he kept through the red flag; he was 7.7 s behind Norris, who was quicker on 43 of the laps they shared to Piastri's 13. A ten-second penalty after the race put him 13th in the final classification.
Colapinto went the other way to most of the field, mediums for 34 laps then softs, and crossed the line eighth from 11th, 1.3 s ahead of his teammate Gasly in tenth. Lawson, from the pit lane, crossed the line ninth: mediums for 11 laps, softs for 31, a second stop on lap 42 just before the Safety Car, the red-flag set, four places on the restart lap and Gasly on lap 63 to move into the points. He made 16 on-track passes, the most in the field, and crossed the line 0.7 s behind Colapinto. Hadjar recovered from last on lap 1 to 12th on the road, 22.5 s behind his teammate. Hirakawa crossed the line 13th on his debut, from 18th, on five sets of softs.
After the race: penalties reshape seventh to 17th
The stewards gave three time penalties after the race. Piastri got ten seconds for causing the collision with Lindblad: he was never fully alongside, so had no right to the corner, and could have avoided contact by moving further left after Turn 1. Gasly was given a stop-and-go and two penalty points for not slowing enough under double yellow flags; after the race it became 30 seconds. Colapinto got ten seconds and one penalty point, five in 12 months, for not slowing enough under a single yellow. Mercedes was fined €5,000 because Russell left the circuit without attending his post-race media commitments.
The final classification has Lawson seventh (6 points), Bortoleto eighth (4), Hadjar ninth (2) and Hirakawa tenth (1), a point on his debut. Then come Albon, Sainz, Piastri, Hülkenberg, Colapinto, Pérez and Gasly. Alpine, eighth and tenth on the road, left with nothing. The top six, and the championship order below, did not change.
What it means
Antonelli has 380 points, Verstappen 261. Four rounds remain, Brazil, Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, none with a sprint, so 100 points are left to win. By our points table Antonelli's lead of 119 cannot be overturned: third place in Mexico City made him the 2026 champion, with nine wins in 19 rounds. The fight for second is now four drivers inside 16 points: Verstappen 261, Hamilton 259, Russell 250, Leclerc 245.
One limit applies. Our timing data shows when each car stopped and what it cost, not why a team chose to change tyres under the red flag or to keep them.
