2026 Mexico City GP: Ferrari had the pace and lost the race at Turn 4 on lap 1

Max Verstappen won the Mexico City Grand Prix from fifth on the grid, by 0.799s over Lewis Hamilton, and Kimi Antonelli finished third to become world champion at 20 years and 68 days, the youngest in history. But the race belonged to Ferrari: Hamilton had taken pole, Charles Leclerc led the first 27 laps and, corrected for tyres and fuel, both Ferraris lapped at Verstappen's pace or better. The thesis of this paper is that the win was lost at Turn 4 on the opening lap, when Leclerc attacked his team-mate, cut across the grass and picked up a 5-second penalty that he served at his pit stop: that is where Verstappen went from second to first and never let the lead go again.

Qualifying

Hamilton took pole with 1:16.514, 0.009s ahead of George Russell, and Leclerc was third at 0.119. Verstappen qualified fourth but started fifth because of a one-place penalty carried over from a clash with Liam Lawson at Turn 12 in second practice, an episode the stewards called "clumsy" on both sides. That moved Antonelli up to fourth. Lando Norris was sixth, Isack Hadjar seventh. Lawson, eighth on track, was excluded from qualifying because his MGU-K did not step down its power as the rules require after his best Q2 lap, and he ended up starting from the pit lane. Valtteri Bottas dropped to 21st for new power unit elements and Fernando Alonso stopped in Q1 with an MGU-K problem. Franco Colapinto, 12th on times, started 11th. Every gap of the session is in the qualifying view.

Corners and straights

We measured how long each car took through each of the 17 corners of the Hermanos Rodríguez on every clean race lap (56 to 58 per driver): from 100 metres before the apex to 100 metres after it, without overlapping the neighbouring corner's zone. By the minimum speed at which they were taken, there are nine slow corners (1 to 6, 13, 14 and 16, under 110 km/h) and eight medium ones (7 to 12, 15 and 17); by our criterion Mexico has no fast corners, not even the shortened Peraltada. The rest of the lap is straights, including the 1.2 km pit straight.

Because everyone ran on tyres of different ages and with different fuel loads, we estimated each time with a model that separates the driver effect from compound, tyre age and the fuel burning off. Verstappen is the reference.

Seconds per lap against Verstappen, corrected for compound, tyre age and fuel; a negative value means faster than him. The columns add up, bar rounding: slow and medium give the corner total, and corners plus straights give the lap. The margin is the standard error of the lap.

Corrected for tyres, Hamilton was the fastest driver in the race, two hundredths a lap better than Verstappen, and Antonelli was eight hundredths off: all three within the margin of error. Leclerc gave away two tenths, almost all of it on the straights. The picture repeats what we saw in Austin: Ferrari gains in the slow corners, where Hamilton found almost two tenths, and gives it back on the straights, where both Ferraris lost between one and two tenths. Red Bull and Mercedes were even everywhere. McLaren, on the other hand, was the fastest car on the straights and the slowest through the corners of the front four; Norris blamed the rulebook's "straight-line speed limiter". The same model says how much each tyre wore: 0.034s a lap for the soft and 0.033 for the medium, while fuel took off 0.027s a lap. The corner-by-corner comparison is in the race telemetry.

The race in five acts

Act 1, the opening lap. Russell lost three places on the run to the first corner with an energy delivery problem, "we let him down on the first straight", said Toto Wolff, and at Turn 6 he tapped Hadjar, who spun and dropped to last. Up front, Leclerc attacked Hamilton on the inside at Turn 4: both went in too fast, Hamilton had to leave the track on the inside and Leclerc completed the move across the grass and came out in front. "Got pushed out by my own team-mate", Hamilton said on the radio. With his exit from Turn 5 compromised, Verstappen passed him for second. Further back, Colapinto started 11th and ended the lap seventh, ahead of Norris and Oscar Piastri, after passing Norris, Nico Hülkenberg and Gasly and taking advantage of Hadjar's spin. The order at the end of the lap was Leclerc, Verstappen, Hamilton, Antonelli, Russell, Arvid Lindblad, Colapinto, Norris, Piastri and Hülkenberg.

Act 2, laps 2 to 28: the penalty. Leclerc pulled away: 2.8s over Verstappen on lap 10, 3.7 on lap 15, 4.6 on lap 20 and 5.0 on lap 25. Hamilton, third, could do nothing about Verstappen: 0.9s behind on lap 1, 1.8 on lap 10 and 2.5 on lap 25. At the start of lap 6 Lance Stroll stopped his Aston Martin at Turn 6 and there was a VSC on laps 7 and 8; Alonso had already retired in the pits on lap 5. Around lap 12 the stewards announced the penalties: 5 seconds for Leclerc and 10 for Russell. On lap 27 Leclerc and Verstappen pitted together. Verstappen spent 22.4s in the pit lane; Leclerc, who served his 5 seconds standing still before the wheels were touched, 28.7s. He came in 4.4s ahead and went out 1.7s behind. Hamilton stopped a lap later and rejoined 4.7s behind Verstappen, in a net third place.

Act 3, laps 28 to 43: Antonelli stretches it. Antonelli had started on softs and kept going: he led 16 laps on a tyre that was not wearing, in a 43-lap stint whose times got 3 thousandths a lap faster as the fuel came down. His lead over Verstappen, already on new softs, went from 15.6s on lap 30 to 9.9 on lap 40 and 4.5 on lap 43, when he stopped, 23.7s of pit lane, and came out fourth behind Hamilton. Russell had stopped on lap 33 with 33.9s in the pit lane, his 10 seconds included, and dropped into the middle of the pack.

Act 4, laps 44 to 47: Bottas, red flag and restart. On lap 44 Bottas arrived at the braking zone for Turn 1 and his front-left suspension broke; the Cadillac went head-on into the barrier. He climbed out unaided and the medical centre cleared him. There was a Safety Car first and on lap 45 a red flag to repair the barrier. The rules set the restart in the order of the lap before the neutralisation, so the grid was Verstappen, Leclerc, Hamilton, Antonelli, Norris, Russell, Piastri, Lindblad, Colapinto and Pierre Gasly, all on new softs. At the standing restart Hamilton passed Leclerc, attacked Verstappen into Turn 1 and there was light contact that race control noted without investigating; Antonelli passed Leclerc on the inside at the same corner. Hülkenberg hit Oliver Bearman at Turn 4 and put him out: 10 seconds. Leclerc locked up and was left with a flat spot: "I think I'm seeing the cord on the tyre", he said, and Ferrari left him out.

Act 5, laps 48 to 71. Verstappen and Hamilton went away together: 0.7s on lap 48, 0.8 on lap 50, 1.3 on lap 58. On lap 59 Piastri tried to pass Lindblad around the outside of Turn 1 without being alongside, they touched and Lindblad, who was running seventh on a one-stop, ended up in the wall: Safety Car until lap 62 and 10 seconds for Piastri. Over the last nine laps Verstappen opened a gap through the stadium and Hamilton never got close enough into Turn 1. He won by 0.799s. "Ferrari were fast but we executed everything well today", Verstappen said. Antonelli crossed the line third at 4.0s and was crying before the last lap: "I could see two Ferraris somehow with the tears". The race, lap by lap, is in the race analysis.

The pace numbers

Median clean lap of each team's best driver, without lap 1, without the VSC laps (7 and 8), the Safety Car and red flag laps (44 to 47 and 59 to 62) or in/out-laps, and with a 107% cut-off:

Red Bull's median is Verstappen's, Ferrari's is Leclerc's (Hamilton was one hundredth off) and Mercedes' is Russell's, with Antonelli three hundredths off. Aston Martin did not reach five clean laps. The fastest lap of the race was Hamilton's, 1:19.268 on lap 50, on five-lap-old softs.

On raw medians Red Bull and Ferrari are level and Mercedes is half a second back; corrected for tyres, as shown above, Hamilton and Antonelli catch Verstappen. The difference is in the stints: Verstappen did 27 laps on mediums (his tyre lost 11 thousandths a lap) and 18 on softs (27 a lap), Hamilton 28 on softs (14 a lap) and 16 on mediums (58 a lap, the most degraded stint among the leaders), and Antonelli 43 on softs with no measurable degradation. After the red flag everyone had new softs and Verstappen's and Hamilton's tyres improved by 9 thousandths a lap to the finish; Leclerc's, with the flat spot, lost 18.

Ferrari's civil war

The arithmetic of the decisive moment is short. Before the stops Leclerc had 4.4s over Verstappen. In the pit lane he lost 6.3s more than him: 5 for the penalty and 1.3 for a slower stop. With a stop equal to Verstappen's, Leclerc would have come out about 3 seconds ahead, on new mediums against new softs, and with the pace he showed afterwards (his medium stint was 0.1s a lap slower than Verstappen's on softs) the fight for the win was a different one. The stewards wrote that both Ferraris entered Turn 4 "with excessive speed", that Hamilton, on the inside, had to go off track to make the corner, and that Leclerc "was not entitled to claim the corner" and completed the overtake off the track. The guideline is 10 seconds; they cut it to 5 because Hamilton was also off track and it was the first lap. Hamilton protested on the radio: "The stewards are basically handing Charles this win", and Verstappen laughed: "I thought all the new penalties were 10s".

Hamilton paid for the contact in a different currency: from pole to third in five corners, 27 laps behind Verstappen without being able to pass him and, on his corrected pace, a possible win gone. "I wanted more from the race and felt we had the pace for a win", he said. Leclerc was the only one who admitted it plainly: "I took a deserved penalty during my pit stop, and we will discuss as a team to avoid such situations in the future". Fred Vasseur spoke of "respect for the brand, the team, our partners and, above all, the two thousand people" at Ferrari. The alternative stops can be simulated in the Strategy Room.

Antonelli, champion at 20

Antonelli needed ninth or better and finished third. He started fourth, lost no places on the opening lap, stretched his softs for 43 laps, led 16 and passed Leclerc at the restart. He is the youngest champion in history, at 20 years and 68 days, three years younger than Sebastian Vettel in 2010, and the first Italian since Alberto Ascari in 1953. He has nine wins plus a Sprint, 16 podiums, seven poles and 430 laps led in 19 races; his team-mate Russell, in the same car, has three wins and 130 points fewer. "I'm still trying to process it all, but to be able to say that I am world champion is just incredible", he said. How he built the title, and where he beat Russell, is the subject of a separate paper.

Colapinto's starts

Colapinto started 11th and crossed the line seventh after lap 1: he passed Norris, Hülkenberg and Gasly, and Hadjar, who had spun. Norris took the place back on lap 6 and Piastri on lap 8, with a car that was faster on the straights. That start was not an exception. We counted the places gained on the first lap against the grid in the 18 races he has run this year: Colapinto gained 28 places, made up ground at 15 starts, held station at one and lost out at two, from an average grid slot of 13.2. Only Lawson has more (33), without ever losing a place. But per start from the top twelve grid slots nobody gains more than Colapinto: 2.4 places a race over eight starts, against Lawson's 1.4 over fourteen. From the middle of the grid, he is the best starter of the season; Russell, with 19 places lost, is the worst of the front-runners.

The rest of his Sunday was solid and ended badly. He stopped on lap 34, from mediums to softs, restarted well after the red flag and crossed the line eighth, 20.2s behind the winner. Piastri's penalty had lifted him to seventh, but the stewards gave him 10 seconds for not slowing enough in a single-yellow sector after the red flag; Alpine presented telemetry and photos, and it was not enough. He was classified 15th. "It was a very good race, I think I executed everything perfectly", he said at first; later, on the penalty: "While it is difficult to really understand, it is my mistake in the car". Gasly, tenth on the road, got 30 seconds for the same offence under double yellows, and Alpine left Mexico without a point.

Hirakawa, Aston Martin and Cadillac

Ryo Hirakawa made his Formula 1 debut at 32, with two World Endurance Championship titles and a Le Mans win with Toyota. Haas stood Esteban Ocon down on Friday night, after second practice, without giving a reason: "he is not ill", the team said, and Ayao Komatsu refused to elaborate; Ocon spoke of "a difference in viewpoints". Hirakawa qualified 19th, 1.1s behind Bearman, started 18th, drove a mistake-free race with stops under both Safety Cars and crossed the line 13th; the penalties lifted him to tenth and the first point of his career. His corrected pace was 0.45s a lap slower than Bearman's before the latter's retirement, reasonable for a first race. "I need to digest this moment, I'm really happy as today was my dream", he said.

Aston Martin lost both cars before lap 7 to "abnormal pressure levels in the PU systems", according to the team. Alonso had had the same MGU-K problem in qualifying and was retired in the pits; Stroll was told to stop the car at Turn 6 "to avoid damaging the battery". It is the team's fifth double retirement of the season. Cadillac is not new to this either: Sergio Pérez retired in Canada with a front suspension failure, both cars retired in Hungary (Bottas with overheated brakes, Pérez with the front suspension), Bottas lost his brake pedal in third practice in Barcelona and in Austin the engine stopped him. "We will fully investigate the cause of this failure and ensure such accidents do not happen again", said Marcin Budkowski. With Lindblad out, Lawson, from the pit lane, finished seventh: 15 places, the best recovery of the day.

Context: the championship

Antonelli reached 380 points, 119 more than Verstappen (261), who moved ahead of Hamilton (259) and Russell (250) in the table. Leclerc has 245 and Norris 221. Four races without a Sprint remain, 100 points: the title is settled, and the fight for second has four drivers within 16 points.

Verstappen won his third race of the year, the first since Singapore. Hadjar, last after the opening lap, finished ninth. Lindblad drove his best race of the year until he was taken out. The team that scored most was Ferrari, 30 points, three more than Red Bull and seven more than Mercedes.

The hypotheses, in short

One: Ferrari had the pace to win, two hundredths a lap better than Verstappen in Hamilton's case, and lost it at Turn 4 on the opening lap.

Two: Leclerc's 5 seconds were worth the lead: he came into the pits 4.4s ahead and went out 1.7 behind.

Three: Verstappen was not the fastest, but he made no mistakes, defended the lead at two restarts and took advantage of Ferrari losing time on the straights.

What this data does NOT say