Antonelli misses media day with illness
Kimi Antonelli’s probable championship-winning weekend hasn’t got off to the best start as he missed media day ahead of the Mexico City Grand Prix. The twenty-year-old will become the sport’s youngest world champion if he finishes ninth or higher in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Mercedes said: “Kimi is feeling under the weather today as he recovers from a viral illness. As a precaution, the FIA have excused him from his mandatory media duties to give him the chance to rest ahead of the weekend. We expect him to be back tomorrow.”
Valtteri Bottas also sick; Cadillac notified media that the Finn was “unwell”. A statement read, “The team has taken the decision to allow him a day of rest, to support his recovery. This is a precautionary measure and does not currently affect his participation in the remainder of the race weekend. We will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates if necessary.”
If Antonelli needs replacing, Fred Vesti, who is scheduled to replace George Russell in FP1, will fill in for the Italian and Bottas’s former teammate at Sauber, Guanyu Zhou, would replace him.
Leclerc’s high hopes following Austin
Charles Leclerc’s hopes are high after a promising showing last weekend in Austin, the Ferrari driver secured back-to-back second places and his first double podium since July.
Ferrari looked to rediscover some of their early-season form after upgrades allowed them to top all three practice sessions and challenge Kimi Antonelli in the Grand Prix. They will be hoping to build on that with further upgrades this weekend in Mexico City, after falling short in qualifying and the race.
In qualifying, the Ferraris could only manage fourth and fifth on the grid, before Leclerc’s performance in the Grand Prix saw him finish in second place. Following that result and the latest upgrades, Leclerc is now hopeful that Ferrari has what it takes to return to winning ways for the first time since July at the British Grand Prix.
He told Crash.net, “Whether I can convert that into a win is a bit difficult to predict, because it’s such fine margins, and it also depends on what the upgrade plans of the others are in upcoming races. But the feeling with the car is getting better and better.”
“These cars are very specific and unique, and I feel like, over the last two or three races, I’ve unlocked something again in terms of driving, and particularly set-up with my driving. Just both together, we’ve taken a step forward, and I just feel much more comfortable with the car.”
Leclerc believes those improved results and being closer to Mercedes will give Ferrari a shot at a win before the end of the season. He put the sudden lack of speed in qualifying, which he also believes cost them victory, down to difficulties in getting the tyres up to temperature.
FP1 driver changes
Lando Norris and Max Verstappen are among ten drivers who will miss first practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix this Friday. Every team except Ferrari and Racing Bulls will run a rookie, as Arvid Lindblad fulfilled the requirement to be a rookie in FP1 at the opening two rounds of the season.
During the season, each driver must sit out FP1 twice, with a rookie defined as a driver with two or fewer Grand Prix Starts. The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez – which is not a street circuit, nor is the race a Sprint event – means most teams are taking the opportunity to fulfil the requirements.
Ferrari are the only team to run both full-time drivers for the opening session of the weekend. Rookies running in Mexico City GP first practice…
- Mercedes – Frederik Vesti (George Russell)
- Red Bull – Ayumu Iwasa (Max Verstappen)
- McLaren – Leonardo Fornaroli (Lando Norris)
- Racing Bulls – Nikola Tsolov (Liam Lawson)
- Alpine – Gabriele Mini (Franco Colapinto)
- Haas – Ryo Hirakawa (Esteban Ocon)
- Audi – Freddie Slater (Gabriel Bortoleto)
- Williams – Luke Browning (Alex Albon)
- Aston Martin – Jak Crawford (Lance Stroll)
- Cadillac – Colton Herta (Valtteri Bottas)
Verstappen will be replaced by Ayumu Iwasa, who drove for Red Bull in first practice in Barcelona and Monza earlier this year. Reigning F1 world champion Lando Norris will hand his McLaren to F2 champion Leonardo Fornaroli and George Russell will be on the sidelines for Mercedes reserve driver Frederik Vesti.and Haas’ Ryo Hirakawa returns in place of Esteban Ocon.
Fornaroli’s F2 title rival Nikola Tsolov will make his FP1 debut, which will be seen as a test for the second seat at Racing Bull’s. However, that isn’t guaranteed after Lawson’s impressive season and Arvid Lindblad’s solid rookie campaign means many people are expecting Racing Bulls to retain the same line-up.
Gabriele Mini will make his F1 practice debut for Alpine, along with Freddie Slater for Audi in Mexico on Friday in Gabriel Bortoleto’s car. Slater, who became the first signee to the Audi Driver Development Programme, will also feature in practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix next week.
Last Time Out … Austin
FP1 was topped by Charles Leclerc with a 36.052, eight and a half hundredths faster than Max Verstappen. The Mercedes duo of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were fourth and fifth, Russell going a tenth and a half faster, while Leclerc’s Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton settled for sixth.
FP2, Leclerc was again fastest, 35.291 four hundredths faster than Antonelli. Verstappen was third fastest, almost a tenth and a half further back, ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, although the seven-time champion was six tenths off the pace. Russell was fifth fastest
FP3, Hamilton was fastest with a 34.893, which put him ahead of Verstappen by just under a tenth and three quarters, with the Red Bull splitting the Ferraris after going seven hundredths faster than Leclerc. Antonelli was three tenths behind Hamilton in fourth as teammate George Russell was almost two tenths behind him in fifth.
Qualifying, Antonelli took his seventh pole of the season with a 34.055, which put him nearly two tenths faster than Verstappen. The second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar three and a half hundredths behind his teammate; Hamilton was out-qualified by five and a half hundredths by Leclerc.
Antonelli went on to take a dominant nearly fourteen-second victory but narrowly missed out on wrapping up a maiden championship by two points. Leclerc finished second as the Ferraris and Red Bulls appeared not to have the pace to challenge the Mercedes.
Verstappen finished third, four seconds behind Leclerc, on an afternoon their very slim title hopes officially ended. The Dutchman finished the race a second ahead of Lewis Hamilton following a very closely fought battle between Red Bull and Ferrari, which aided Antonelli in breaking away at the start of the race
Talking Points Mexico City
Round nineteen brings F1 to Mexico City for the second leg of the double triple header to finish the season; one thing on everyone’s mind is whether Kimi Antonelli can wrap up his maiden title.
The 20-year-old sensation has obliterated the competition, holding a respective 123- and 124-point advantage over the last remaining title contenders, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. That means he needs to score two points to seal his first of possibly many championships.
Antonelli has been unstoppable since his first Grand Prix win in Shanghai, and if he were to become champion, he would be the youngest by three years, with possibly two decades remaining in his career; it’s unlikely to be his last…
Red Bull has emerged in these late races as the closest to Mercedes, although there still appears to be an issue with their starts; their race pace has seen them overtake Ferrari as Mercedes’ closest challengers.
Victory wasn’t likely in Austin given the pace of Verstappen on the softs compared to the hard runners, but he was still able to finish on the podium amid troubles, showing how much the team has progressed from the start of 2026, when it was firmly fourth-best.
However, Ferrari has started to re-establish their position as the best of the rest with three podiums in the last three rounds, but it hasn’t won a race since Silverstone. Fred Vasseur’s assessment on Sunday at COTA was that Ferrari had got everything right except its Q3 laps. Those costly Saturday shortcomings left Leclerc and Hamilton further down the grid and forced them to go on the attack in the race.
Leclerc still came away with second, and Ferrari left Austin encouraged, with further evidence that the SF-26’s competitiveness is no longer dependent on circuit characteristics. Ferrari’s heritage demands more than podium finishes, however.
Mexico City is a unique challenge at 2,238m above sea level; the thin air means more straight-line speed, and teams normally run higher downforce setups. In some ways, this circuit is similar to Monza in terms of the layout, which should create opportunities for overtaking.
The altitude also acts as a real performance leveller being the highest altitude there is less oxygen for the power units, meaning that the cars are closer than normal. In a season where, at least in the midfield, the racing has been as competitive as ever, you need to hope for the race to be as high as ever.
Ferrari are confident that their car is working, but they are losing out by fine margins like the tyre operating window and set-up. A Ferrari victory in Mexico on Sunday is certainly not out of the question.
Not only is its Sergio Perez’s home race, should he take the start become the seventh driver to make 300th start, Lewis Hamilton will also make his 400th start in Las Vegas. This figure carries a deeper significance that perhaps only Mexicans and Latin Americans fully grasp, but that the world needs to know.
Reaching 300 Grands Prix means 300 occasions in which ‘Checo’ shattered the “pay driver” stigma – that myth attributing his arrival at the Pinnacle of racing solely to the backing of his sponsors- in Melbourne 2011. Perez is the most successful Mexican in sports history.
His true legacy lies in having been the driving force behind Formula 1’s return to Mexico and in paving the way for new generations to pursue their own dreams, guided by the motto ‘Checo’ has engraved on his helmet: “Never give up.”
How Kimi Antonelli can win the championship
Kimi Antonelli couldn’t seal the championship at the first race where it was mathematically possible, but this weekend offers the best chance to win it.
His victory last weekend moved him to 123, just two short of what he needed to become the sport’s youngest-ever champion. But it officially became a three-driver fight with teammate George Russell and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton on 124, while Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and reigning champion Lando Norris were knocked out of mathematically winning the championship.
There are four scheduled races left – Brazil, Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi – after the Mexico City and a maximum of 100 points left to play for. Antonelli would automatically be champion should Qatar and Abu Dhabi be cancelled due to the Iran War.
To win the title in Mexico City, Antonelli simply needs to score two points, or not be outscored by Russell by 24 points and Hamilton by 25 points.
The permutations for Antonelli to become champion in Mexico City are:
- Antonelli finishes ninth or better
- Russell and Hamilton fail to win the
Mercedes has the first opportunity to seal the constructors ‘ championship; however, that appears more difficult. The German manufacturer has a hundred and thirty-three-point lead over Ferrari.
They must outscore Ferrari by thirty-nine points, thus requiring a one-two finish and Ferrari failing to score; however, the Italian manufacturer has scored strongly in recent races.
The Silver Arrows’ first realistic chance to wrap things up will therefore likely come at next week’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix when they would only need to finish the Interlagos event 129 points ahead, four fewer than now.
The permutations for Mercedes to become champion in Mexico City are:
- To clinch the title this weekend, Mercedes must outscore Ferrari by 39 points.
- That would effectively require a Mercedes one-two finish combined with Ferrari failing to score.
Perez signs two-year extension with Cadillac
Sergio Perez will remain with Cadillac until 2029 after signing a multi-year contract extension. The news comes ahead of his home Grand Prix and his three hundredth Grand Prix start in Mexico City. He joined the team after a year out last year for the American team’s debut season.
Perez made his Formula One debut in 2011 and has won six Grands Prix – five for Red Bull between 2021-24 and one for Racing Point (now Aston Martin) in 2020. He finished third in the 2022 drivers’ championship and second behind team-mate Max Verstappen in 2023.
Despite having two years left on his contract, Red Bull dropped him at the end of the 2024 season after the team felt he had run out of time to prove he could support Verstappen.
Perez sits last in the championship, with three fourteenth-place finishes, in Barcelona, Silverstone, and Azerbaijan, his best performances. Neither he nor Bottas has earned a point for Cadillac.
He said, “Joining Cadillac from day one was a project I truly believed in, and extending my commitment feels like a natural continuation of this chapter. Building a Formula One team from the ground up takes time, relentless work and patience, but the progress we are making together is incredibly rewarding.”
Bearman believes Haas cannot extract much more performance
Ollie Bearman believes Haas cannot extract much more performance from its 2026 car, following the United States Grand Prix. The Englishman had encouraging pace in practice before slipping away in qualifying, where he was knocked out in Q1 putting him sixteenth.
He explained this was down to finding a near-perfect set-up as early as FP1, meaning his VF-26 lost pace relative to the competition as his rivals made inroads on that front. Bearman told Motorsport.com, “It shows that we’re doing a good job as a team. We’re getting the most out of our car from FP1, basically. We had a car that we really changed the ride height, I tell you, by one millimetre the whole weekend. From where I started to where I raced the car? Same car.”
“Because it was good. Because it was great. From the first time I put the soft tyre in FP1, in my FP1 debrief, I was like, ‘I don’t know what else I need from the car’. It’s very, very good. I mean, the balance is good, it’s feeling good. We just don’t have enough downforce. So it feels good, but we’re just not quite as quick as others.”
Haas has been held back by its latest upgrade, which was introduced nearly two months ago in Monza; since then, no new parts have been introduced other than a Sepang-specific rear impact structure. Bearman is also not surprised the gap hasn’t changed, but they haven’t changed characteristics and don’t have enough downforce.
He, however, says those characteristics are good overall, but the lack of downforce means they are killing tyre life. Meanwhile, its rivals have brought more upgrades that’s the reason Bearman is not surprised they have been overtaken by their rivals.
Alonso hits out at ‘low quality’
Fernando Alonso has hit out at Alex Albon after a collision on the opening lap of the United States Grand Prix, saying the quality of drivers in the bottom third of the grid “is very low.”
The two made contact after the Williams driver tried to pass Alonso at the Turn Eleven hairpin at the Circuit of the Americas for twelfth place. The stewards decided not to hand out penalties, but it ultimately cost Alonso four places and left his Aston Martin with floor damage. He finished the race down in sixteenth, with no points on the board.
Alonso said, “Albon forgot that corner 11 was there and he had to turn left. I think when you start at the back there is this risk always. I think the quality of the drivers in the lower third of the grid is very low, as we saw today with Alex.”
Alonso felt that the damage to his car was causing him to lose half a second or more per lap and that he finished the race with “half a car.” Saying “ That was the biggest damage. “I think we lost half a second or more [per lap]. The car is destroyed; I saw it in parc ferme. Half of the floor is not there. I don’t know how we kept on going and how we were semi-competitive.
