Max Verstappen won an action-packed Mexico City Grand Prix as he finished eight tenths ahead of Lewis Hamilton following a close fight between the two multiple champions, finishing three seconds ahead of Kimi Antonelli, who won the championship.<\/p>\n
The Italian becomes the first Italian to win the drivers\u2019 championship in seventy-three years and follows in the footsteps of Hamilton and Jacques Villeunuve by winning the title in only his second season. Antonelli spent the closing laps shadowing his fellow champions before finishing third.<\/p>\n
Italy hasn\u2019t had a drivers\u2019 championship since 1953 and a constructors\u2019 since 2008. Fitting that Hamilton, the now third-youngest champion, joined him on the podium, smashing the record held for sixteen years by Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton narrowly missed out on his second win of the season, but that wouldn\u2019t have been enough to stop Antonelli from winning the title.<\/p>\n
It was another mature drive for the twenty-year-old, amid a chaotic and tension-filled Halloween weekend as Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead. Hamilton was involved in a tension-filled fight with Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, who finished six seconds behind Antonelli.<\/p>\n
That scrap between the Ferraris started on the opening lap, gifting Verstappen the opportunity to take the lead before going on to take his sixth win in eleven in Mexico City. Hamilton went side by side with Leclerc through the tight Turns One-Two before Leclerc attacked again into Turn Four around the outside.<\/p>\n
Verstappen seized control, leapfrogging the Ferraris at his pit stop, and that effectively handed Antonelli the championship. But the Italian didn\u2019t take an easy afternoon as he picked his way past Leclerc to finish the race just over six and a half seconds behind Antonelli. Leclerc was handed a five-second time penalty for forcing Hamilton wide, which dropped him down after his pit stop.<\/p>\n
Ferrari appeared to have the fastest car in Mexico but failed to win the race, largely due to the opening lap squabble between their drivers. The FIA had warned drivers about corner cutting at Turns 1 and 4, so Hamilton was furious when Leclerc cut Turn 4 to take the lead and only received a five-second time penalty.<\/p>\n
Leclerc\u2019s race further unravelled at the restart following a huge crash for Valtteri Bottas caused by a suspected suspension failure caused a red flag. At the restart with twenty-six lap to go, Leclerc got a poor launch from second, so Hamilton attacked Verstappen into Turn 1, with the pair making contact as the Red Bull driver came out on top.<\/p>\n
The following final restart, following a collision between Oscar Piastri and Arvid Lindblad, Verstappen just managed to hold off Hamilton for the remaining eight laps to take victory. He never came under threat from Leclerc and was arguably helped by the red flag for Bottas’ big crash, although Red Bull have struggled with their starts this year.<\/p>\n
Verstappen got a good enough launch to hold the inside into Turn 1 and aggressively fended off Hamilton, who got a great restart from third on the grid. That proved to be the final crucial moment as Hamilton was unable to get close to Verstappen to make a serious overtake attempt, even on the Safety Car restart following Lindblad’s accident.<\/p>\n
Following the Ferrari dramas, Verstappen found himself second before passing Leclerc when they both stopped on lap twenty-eight. Despite going to the less durable softs the Red Bull driver managed them to the end.<\/p>\n
Leclerc also flat-spotted his tyres as he finished a second ahead of the outgoing champion Lando Norris and Antonelli\u2019s main rival and teammate George Russell almost half a second behind. Russell managed to split the two McLarens after he finished seven seconds ahead of Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n
Hamilton, who finished second at the Mexico City Grand Prix: “Firstly, look at this crowd. We have to acknowledge them. A huge congratulations to Kimi and the Mercedes team. It\u2019s great to see them all up here celebrating their success. Youngest world champion ever, it\u2019s pretty phenomenal, and I\u2019m so grateful to be in the race to witness it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antonelli speaking after the race: “It’s a day I will remember forever. Thank you so much to my team, my family, my friends and all you guys that support me and the sport. I’m just so grateful and thank you so much. It’s starting to get real and I’m going to enjoy every bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russell\u2019s hopes of keeping his slim title hopes alive ended in a collision on the opening lap with Isack Hadjar, which earned him a ten-second penalty; again, luck alluded him in a season where Antonelli has steadily marched his way to the championship.<\/p>\n
Piastri finished the race seven tenths ahead of Franco Colapinto, while a brilliant drive following a pit lane start saw Liam Lawson split the Alpine\u2019s. Lawson was seven tenths behind the Argentine, and six tenths ahead of Pierre Gasly.<\/p>\n
Gabriel Bortoleto missed out on points by half a second as the Audi driver finished four tenths ahead of Hadjar, the contact with Russell on the opening lap dropping the French-Algerian to the back and making it difficult to gain places. On his debut Ryo Hirakawa finished thirteenth, having suddenly replaced Esteban Ocon on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Alex Albon finished a second ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz, followed by Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez.<\/p>\n
Ollie Bearman had been another to lose out in the restart; the A3udi of Hulkenberg ran into the back of him taking the Haas driver out of the race. The two other retirements were the Aston Martins of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, who stopped early on, Stroll stopping at Turn Five and Alonso in the pit lane on lap seven.<\/p>\n
Many had tipped Russell to be champion this season, but the sport has witnessed the emergence of a new star and perhaps one of its future greats.<\/p>\n
At just twenty years old, Antonelli has secured his place in history as a generational talent, alongside two other generational talents on the podium, becoming the youngest Formula One World Champion and setting a benchmark that may stand for decades to come. Not only beating Russell, but also the greatest of all time, Hamilton, at least for now.<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen won an action-packed Mexico City Grand Prix as he finished eight tenths ahead of Lewis Hamilton following a close fight between the two multiple champions, finishing three seconds ahead of Kimi Antonelli, who won the championship. The Italian becomes the first Italian to win the drivers\u2019 championship in seventy-three years and follows in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2339,215,709,2252,1283,1298,1304,1305,1307,1308,1309,1604,1612,1637,1642,1843],"class_list":["post-16655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-session-reports","tag-2339","tag-autodromo-hermanos-rodriguez","tag-ferrari","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mercedes","tag-mexican-gp","tag-mexican-grand-prix","tag-mexico-city","tag-mexico-city-gp","tag-mexico-city-grand-prix","tag-race","tag-race-report","tag-red-bull","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-lewis-hamilton"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16656,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16655\/revisions\/16656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}