Kimi Antonelli’s record-breaking achievement, Lewis Hamilton slams Charles Leclerc after Ferrari friendly fire, Oscar Piastri’s penalty and crash unpacked, George Russell loses hold on second in the standings

History is made to be broken.

When Andrea Kimi Antonelli took the chequered flag third at the Mexico City Grand Prix, records tumbled.

He’s the youngest world champion in history, at 20 years and 68 days, eclipsing the record set by Sebastian Vettel at 23 years and 134 days in 2010. He’s the first driver born in the 21st century to win the title.

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He is the first Italian to win the championship in 73 years, dating back to Alberto Ascari’s 1953 title, and he is only the third Italian, after Giuseppe Farina and Ascari, to win the championship.

These credits follow Antonelli being the youngest points leader in F1 history when he took top spot in the standings after the Japanese Grand Prix. He also became the youngest pole-getter when he started from P1 in China.

He’s also the first Mercedes junior driver to win a Formula 1 title.

“I think he’s the next generational talent,” said his race engineer, Peter Bonnington.

“I always used to believe in the 10,000-hour rule — I was convinced it was a thing — and then I experienced greatness and realised talent is a real thing.

“That’s the extra 0.2s that you just can’t learn from driving around and around and around. He’s got it. Lewis (Hamilton) had it. Michael (Schumacher) had it.”

His title triumph in Mexico City was only the beginning. His title-winning days have only just begun.

The champagne flowed at Red Bull Racing too, where Max Verstappen claimed a well-judged third victory.

At Ferrari, however, the atmosphere was more sombre. In the critical final weeks of 2026 — the prelude for 2027 — the Italian team that had dreams of title glory this year was left to count the cost of yet another victory gone begging.

HAMILTON BLASTS LECLERC AFTER WIN GOES BEGGING

“When you are one-two, you don’t imagine you can lose the race,” Ferrari boss Frédéric Vasseur told Sky Sports. “We were able to do it.”

Vasseur has spent much of this season attempting to deflect from the shortcomings and mistakes of his team and drivers. It’s his job as a team principal.

But these comments felt pointed, and justifiably so.

Ferrari was competitive in Mexico, where the track characteristics minimised some of its weaknesses and boosted its strengths.

Lewis Hamilton started on pole, and Charles Leclerc as up from third to second before the first corner: one-two, the dream scenario.

But Leclerc wanted the lead, and after abandoning an attempt at the first chicane, he launched an ambitious around-the-outside moved at the second chicane.

He cut the corner and took the lead, while Hamilton lost momentum and slipped to third behind Max Verstappen.

When Leclerc was penalised for overtaking off the track, Verstappen inherited the lead. He won the race, with Hamilton second and Leclerc fourth.

Hamilton was understandably furious, but it was as much about the way Ferrari works as it was about this specific incident.

Ferrari’s execution errors this season have been compounded by an inability or unwillingness or a lack of preparedness to lay down the law to its drivers.

Multiple times this season points have gone begging because of driver freelancing.

In the Netherlands Leclerc ignored an order to pit, which would have got him out of Hamilton’s way. Hamilton felt a lack of team orders in that situation had cost him the win.

In Italy they hit each other at the first chicane, with Hamilton losing places over the gravel. This was at a time Hamilton still had an outside shot at the championship and Ferrari was still dreaming of the constructors title.

This weekend a one-two that would have come close to sealing second in the standings went begging because the drivers were too wrapped up in their own self-interest.

Hamilton was unwilling to pull any punches after the race.

“I’m really pissed,” he said. “We lost valuable points, and we, as a team, worked so hard.

“We could have easily had a one-two today — really we had the pace to do so.

“But when your teammate works against you and then you lose positions like that, it’s definitely tough.

“We don’t have rules of engagement, and whether or not that will change anything from Charles’s side, I don’t know. We’ve just got to figure it out, but something needs to change for sure.”

He said Leclerc lacked experience to execute at the front.

“I think it’s a mentality thing. It’s like do or die — ‘Either I win or none of us do’ — and it shouldn’t be that. It should be us having, getting that one-two.

“I think the core thing to remember, which maybe comes with age, is that every decision you make in the car impacts all the people that work in the background for the whole team,” he said.

“It’s a shame to see us lose this, as we did. That will just continue unless action is taken — unless a real deep, serious conversation is had.

“It shouldn’t happen moving forward.

“We’ll take it offline and we’ll have some good conversations, hopefully. For sure it won’t be easy, but it must be done.”

Leclerc accepted that he deserved a penalty “in a way”, noting that Hamilton also ran off the track in the battle, but fundamentally backed his right to challenge Hamilton on track.

“When you’re fighting for a win, that’s the way it should be,” he said.

Vasseur cut to the core of the issue.

“I think it’s just a matter of respect,” he said. “Respect for the brand, for the sponsor, for the team, for the 2000 people working (at the factory) at home like hell.

“Honestly, it’s difficult to digest for me to give up a win like this.”

Ferrari will probably still seal second in the standings next weekend in Brazil, but the final rounds of this season are not really about 2026.

For Ferrari, which expects to contend for the title next year, it’s about being prepared for 2027.

These sorts of mistakes — these sorts of flashpoints and tensions — will undermine a championship campaign. It’s the stuff that loses titles.

Hamilton has been calling for better structure at Ferrari for as long as he’s been there. This weekend was more evidence that it’s not yet at a title-contending level.

PIASTRI PENALTY UNPACKED

Oscar Piastri’s Mexico weekend just kept getting worse and worse.

He looked decently competitive during Friday practice, but then he flunked out in Q2 — the team said the car was the problem — and in the race ended up nowhere.

Though reasonably competitive on the soft tyre, his pace on the mediums was ordinary at best.

Still, seventh or eighth place looked on the cards — until the final laps, when he collided with Arvid Lindblad.

The move was similar to Hamilton’s attempt to pass Verstappen around the outside of the first turn, but whereas they got away without damage, Lindblad’s rear-left wheel was blown off its suspension when it made contact with Piastri’s front-right tyre.

The matter went to the stewards after the race, who slapped Piastri with a 10s penalty that dropped him 13th once other drivers served their own post-race punishments.

A miserable end to a weekend at his weakest race circuit.

The punishment was warranted according to the driving standards guidelines, which outline how far along another car an attacking driver needs to be at the apex to make a move.

Around the outside, a car must be fully alongside the other car. Piastri was perhaps two-thirds of the way there.

Nonetheless, McLaren described it as “harsh”.

Harsh is probably right, in so much as it describes a potential shortcoming of the guidelines.

Though Piastri wasn’t fully alongside, he had the momentum going into the corner and comfortably kept his car on the road.

Lindblad knew he was being attacked — he moved under braking into the corner, generally considered unsportsmanlike — but still chose not to leave space on the exit of the turn.

That’s his right to do, per the letter of the guidelines, but the result is that he ended up crashing out of the race.

A more experienced driver might have left more room in that situation.

But, then again, Lindblad might have expected Piastri to use more of the run-off area, as Hamilton did when backing out of his move against Verstappen, contributing to both making it through the corner.

It wouldn’t be fair to say blame is shared, and Lindblad clearly paid a significant price. But both drivers could have done more to get through the chicane unscathed.

The result contributed to McLaren falling further behind Red Bull Racing in the constructors championship; it’s now outright fourth and 17 points adrift.

Though the team and Norris enthused that the car was fast enough in race trim to contend for the podium and maybe even a victory, it remains that it’s not consistent enough to qualify highly enough to put those results in reach, at least not at a circuit like this, where overtaking is difficult.

The last four grands prix have featured three different teams on the podium. McLaren has not been among them; in fact it’s in the middle of a five-weekend podium drought.

It has up to four rounds remaining to turn that tide.

‘DISTRAUGHT’ RUSSELL DOWN TO FOURTH

You have to spare a thought for George Russell, whose title defeat became complete in Mexico City.

Though he saw it coming and said ahead of this weekend that mentally he’d already accepted it, the moment must still have hit him like an anvil.

This was supposed to have been his season after years of toil. Now he faces an uncertain career trajectory.

As if to underline his misery, he also lost second in the championship, with the battle for runner-up heating up considerably.

Drivers championship

2. Max Verstappen: 261 points

3. Lewis Hamilton: -2 points

4. George Russell: -11 points

5. Charles Leclerc: -16 points

6. Lando Norris: -40 points

It paints a generally grim picture for Russell, whom Mercedes excused from his post-race media duties, incurring a €5000 (A$7950) fine on his behalf.

“I saw George after the race on the FIA scales, and obviously he’s distraught about the situation,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said, per The Race.

“I have known George for such a long time. He is going through a hard time, but he was also responsible in getting the young man into this team.

“For a racing driver, this is a catastrophic moment.”

Wolff said another engine issue, which cost him acceleration off the line and dropped him from second to fifth on the first lap, only rubbed salt into the wounds.

“Maybe today the race was a little bit a picture of his season,” he said.

“This was a race for him to win. We had the pace in the car, and we let him down on the first straight. The energy delivery was not what we thought it should be.

“I’m very much with him at the moment. I’ve been in situations where it’s very, very difficult to cope.

“So him not doing the media work or leaving the track is absolutely understandable. Him staying would have actually surprised me.”

He won’t have long to process that catastrophe before his 2027 season starts in earnest this weekend in Brazil.