The two races that decided the 2026 Formula One season were won by Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. Both championships went to Mercedes.
Kimi Antonelli clinched the Drivers’ title with third place at the Mexico City Grand Prix on November 1, becoming, at 20, the youngest world champion in the sport’s history. Seven days later at Interlagos, in a race that went wet, dry and wet again, George Russell and Antonelli finished fourth and fifth. It was enough to seal Mercedes’ ninth Constructors’ Championship with three rounds still to run.
Neither title was clinched with a victory, and that is the real story of the 2026 F1 championships. One team built an advantage so large in the first year of a new rulebook that it could afford to lose the races that settled them.
| Mexico City GP (Nov. 1) | Won by Max Verstappen; Kimi Antonelli third and crowned champion |
| São Paulo GP (Nov. 8) | Won by Lando Norris; Mercedes fourth and fifth, enough for the Constructors’ title |
| Drivers’ Champion | Kimi Antonelli, 20, the youngest in F1 history |
| Constructors’ Champion | Mercedes, its ninth title and first since 2021 |
| Still to run | Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi |
Mexico: The Title Arrives in Third Place
Antonelli arrived in Mexico City needing only ninth place. Lewis Hamilton started from pole, and for a few corners it looked like Ferrari’s day. Then Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc fought side by side through Turns 1 and 4, both ran off track, and Leclerc emerged in the lead across the grass. Verstappen, from fifth on the grid, slipped past the compromised Hamilton. Leclerc was handed a five-second penalty for cutting the track, and serving it dropped him behind the Red Bull.
Mercedes had its own opening-lap drama. Russell, who started second, slipped back at the first corner, then tipped Isack Hadjar into a spin at Turn 6 and collected a 10-second penalty. He recovered to sixth, but the afternoon’s Mercedes story belonged to his teammate.
The race was stopped when a front suspension failure sent Valtteri Bottas’s Cadillac heavily into the Turn 1 barrier. A late Safety Car, triggered when Oscar Piastri and Arvid Lindblad collided, bunched the field for a final eight-lap sprint. Hamilton stayed within striking distance to the end, but Verstappen held on by 0.799 seconds for his third win of the season, his sixth in Mexico City, and second place in the standings.
Antonelli brought it home in third. At 20 years and 68 days, he beat Sebastian Vettel’s 2010 mark of 23 years and 134 days by more than three years, and became Italy’s first world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953.
The emotion poured out over the radio. “Get in there Kimi, champion of the world!” race engineer Peter Bonnington shouted as he crossed the line. Antonelli broke down in tears: “We did it! Thank you so much.” Toto Wolff, who signed him to the Mercedes junior programme at 11, came on next: “Kimi, we did it.”
Brazil: Mercedes Finishes the Job Without a Podium
Interlagos set a different kind of test. Qualifying ran in heavy rain, and Norris handled it best, taking his third consecutive pole at the circuit. Antonelli joined him on the front row only after Russell received a five-place grid penalty, while Brazilian debutant Rafael Câmara, racing for Haas at his home event, crashed in Q2 and brought out a late red flag.
Five power-unit penalties then reshuffled the grid. Verstappen, in the first season of Red Bull’s own Ford-backed engine, took 30 places for fitting a fifth combustion engine, turbocharger and exhaust, and lined up 21st. Both Ferraris started deep in the field too.
The race started on intermediates. Antonelli beat Norris into Turn 1, and Liam Lawson swept around the outside of the McLaren to run second. As the track dried, teams switched to slicks, before another shower forced a return to intermediates late on.
The decisive moment came on lap 20, when Antonelli, still leading, reported a car issue and spun at Turn 1. Norris took over and managed the changing conditions from there, winning by 14.602 seconds for his third victory of the season. There was a Mercedes subplot even here: Norris’s McLaren runs a Mercedes power unit, so the engine that won the race was the same one that powered the team clinching the title.
Verstappen produced the drive of the day. He was 13th after the opening lap and eighth by lap five, and as the track dried he kept coming, finally passing Hadjar on lap 38 to take second. Hadjar completed a Red Bull double podium. Piastri was sixth, and Lawson was classified seventh after Leclerc’s post-race penalty.
Mercedes arrived 126 points clear of Ferrari and needed to outscore the Scuderia by three points to make the title safe. “We came into this season wanting to fight for both championships,” Wolff had said before the weekend, “and there is still a job left to finish.” It was messier than planned. Russell spun at the pit-lane exit after his first stop and brushed the wall. Antonelli, after his spin, was told to hand fourth place to Russell, who was on fresher intermediates, and later received a five-second penalty for an unsafe release.
Neither Mercedes reached the podium. Fourth and fifth were enough. The ninth Constructors’ title, the team’s first since its run of eight straight from 2014 to 2021, draws Mercedes level with Williams for third on the all-time list.
How Mercedes Won the 2026 F1 Championships
These two weekends only finished a job Mercedes started in March. When Formula One’s new engine and aerodynamic rules arrived this season, Mercedes adapted fastest, and Antonelli turned that edge into results immediately. His first three wins, in China, Japan and Miami, came in a row and all from pole.
It wasn’t flawless. An engine failure four laps from the end in Barcelona ended a five-race winning streak. But by the time he left Mexico, Antonelli had nine wins and seven poles, including victory at his home race at Monza. “Very early on, we had such a strong car, and we were very consistent,” he said after clinching the title.
The Constructors’ title rested on depth as much as on the champion. Russell won three Grands Prix of his own, including Austria, which is why Mercedes leaves Brazil 142 points clear of Ferrari. For a manufacturer that sells its road cars on a racing bloodline, there is no stronger argument than being first to master a new generation of hybrid power.
The Champions They Beat
The steepest fall belongs to McLaren. Norris began the year as world champion and leaves Brazil sixth in the standings, 144 points behind Antonelli, despite three wins. Piastri is seventh. Norris was blunt in Mexico: “It’s the same as the whole year, we’re just not quick enough, the car is too difficult to drive.” The irony is that McLaren uses the same Mercedes power unit as the new champions. The gap has been the car around it.
Ferrari has the opposite problem: pace without peace. Its drivers were first and second for part of the opening lap in Mexico before taking each other off the road. “Pushed out by my own teammate,” Hamilton radioed, and afterward he was pointed: “I think we had the pace to win today. We have to hold some serious talks behind the scenes.” Team principal Fred Vasseur spoke to both before Brazil, and Leclerc, who missed media day after the birth of his daughter, said the matter was settled. Interlagos then went wrong in other ways. Hamilton recovered from 20th but spun late and finished ninth, a lap down, and Leclerc crossed the line seventh before a five-second penalty for hitting Lawson dropped him to eighth.
Red Bull is the team with momentum. Verstappen’s two drives, a win from fifth in Mexico and second from 21st in Brazil, came with an engine in its debut season, and they are the clearest sign that next year’s fight may not be a Mercedes procession.
| Drivers | Points | Constructors | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) | 390 | 1. Mercedes | 652 |
| 2. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) | 279 | 2. Ferrari | 510 |
| 3. George Russell (Mercedes) | 262 | 3. Red Bull | 415 |
| 4. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) | 261 | ||
| 5. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) | 251 | ||
| 6. Lando Norris (McLaren) | 246 |
With three rounds left, the fight is for second. Verstappen leads Russell by 17 points, with Hamilton one point further back.
What It Means
A race rewards one perfect afternoon. A championship is a season-long average, and in 2026 nobody’s average came close to Antonelli’s or Mercedes’. That is why the titles could be decided on days when the champions finished third, fourth and fifth.
The uncomfortable question for their rivals is what comes next. Mercedes built this advantage in the first year of a new rulebook, and its champion is only 20. The last time Mercedes mastered a rules reset first, in 2014, it won the next eight Constructors’ titles.
Sources: Formula One Mexico City Grand Prix race report; FIA São Paulo Grand Prix race report; official final classifications and championship standings. Earlier ECN coverage: Mercedes Has the Lead. Now It Has to Find the Speed.
