Antonelli becomes F1's youngest world champion as Verstappen edges Hamilton in Mexico

Kimi Antonelli claimed Formula 1’s world championship at the Mexico City Grand Prix, becoming the sport’s youngest-ever title winner after finishing third while neither of his closest rivals took victory. Max Verstappen won the race for Red Bull ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, delivering the result that handed the Mercedes driver his maiden championship.

Verstappen’s victory hinged on a perfectly timed pit stop on lap 28 of 71. Running on medium tyres — the only frontrunner to do so at the start — he pitted alongside early leader Charles Leclerc and, aided by the five-second penalty Leclerc was already carrying for a first-lap infringement, leapfrogged the Ferrari in the pitlane to take the lead. He would not relinquish it.

The race had begun in chaos for Ferrari. Leclerc, starting from pole alongside Hamilton, cut the grass at Turn 4-5 to pass his own team-mate on the opening lap, costing Hamilton momentum and allowing Verstappen to snatch second. Hamilton was blunt about the incident afterwards: “I got pushed off by my own team-mate.” Verstappen also lobbied for Leclerc to surrender the position, and while the stewards issued a five-second penalty, both drivers felt the punishment was lenient. “He’s got clean air, he doesn’t have to manage like the rest of us,” Hamilton noted.

Further back, George Russell’s slow start from second on the grid dropped him to sixth and earned him a 10-second time penalty after he collected Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar. That effectively ended any slim mathematical hope Russell carried into the weekend.

Leclerc had built a five-second cushion over Verstappen before the stops, but the undercut and the accumulated penalty swung the race decisively. Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase called for “one of your magic Mexico stints” as his driver took the lead on the more brittle soft compound, and Verstappen delivered, managing the tyres across the remaining 43 laps to hold off Hamilton at the flag.

Antonelli, meanwhile, produced the measured, composed drive that has defined his championship campaign. He picked off Leclerc in the second half of the race to secure third, a result that proved academic to the title outcome but underlined why Mercedes backed the teenager to carry their hopes this season. With the championship now settled, Antonelli’s name enters the record books as the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history.