Antonelli's Title Survives a Cracked Sump as Mexico Reshapes the Runner-Up Fight
Mercedes has revealed how close Andrea Kimi Antonelli came to retiring on the day he became Italy's first champion since 1953, while four drivers now chase second and Cadillac's ownership faces questions.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli clinched the 2026 drivers’ championship at the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday, becoming Italy’s first Formula 1 world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953. Three days on, Mercedes has disclosed that his car was losing oil from a cracked sump in the closing laps, and that he finished third with very little margin to spare. His 119-point lead over Max Verstappen with four rounds left settles the title. Behind him, the race for everything else has rarely been tighter.
The cracked sump that nearly spoiled Antonelli’s coronation
Mercedes’ explanation, reported by RaceFans and Crash.net, is that Antonelli’s power unit was shedding oil at the end of the race, with the team describing him as “on the edge of retirement”. The sump is the reservoir at the bottom of the engine that collects and returns oil, so a crack there means the system is slowly running dry. Oil loss of this kind is progressive rather than sudden: pressure and temperature traces tend to deteriorate lap by lap until the engine either reaches the flag or has to be switched off to save it.
Mexico City is an unforgiving place for that kind of problem. At more than 2,000 metres of altitude, the thin air reduces cooling efficiency, and power units already run close to their thermal limits there. Antonelli finished third behind Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, which made it a straightforward afternoon on paper and a tense one on the pit wall.
The near-miss feeds into a broader debate that RacingNews365 has opened: was the Mercedes W17 simply the dominant car of 2026, or did Antonelli’s ability make the difference? The honest answer is both, but the numbers lean towards the driver more than the sceptics would like.
Antonelli against Russell in the same W17
- Mercedes has won 12 of the 19 rounds so far. Antonelli has nine of those victories and George Russell three.
- Antonelli has 380 points to Russell’s 250, a gap of 130 points in the same machinery.
- Mercedes leads the constructors’ championship with 630 points, 126 clear of Ferrari.
The W17 was clearly the best all-round package, and no driver wins nine grands prix in a midfield car. Yet a 130-point margin over an established race winner in an identical car is not something machinery explains. The best car gave Antonelli the opportunity. The way he converted it, at 20 years old and in only his second season, is what made him champion with four races to spare.
Sixteen points cover four drivers in the fight for second
If the championship itself is decided, the battle to finish as runner-up is anything but. Mexico City compressed it dramatically.
| Position | Driver | Team | Points | Gap to second |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 261 | – |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 259 | 2 |
| 4 | George Russell | Mercedes | 250 | 11 |
| 5 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 245 | 16 |
Verstappen’s victory from fifth on the grid was his third of the season and the most complete Red Bull performance in some time. Hamilton started from pole and finished second, a result that keeps his second season in red competitive in the standings, even if his tally of one win does not reflect the car’s occasional front-running pace.
The emotional moment Hamilton shared with Peter Bonnington in Mexico, highlighted by Crash.net, showed how much of his career was built at Mercedes. Bonnington engineered Hamilton through his most successful years at Brackley, and the warmth between them, on a weekend when Hamilton was fighting the Silver Arrows for position, said something about the respect that survived his move to Maranello.
The next stop has history for both drivers at the top of this fight. RacingNews365 recalled the 2021 São Paulo weekend, when Hamilton won from 10th on the grid during his title duel with Verstappen. Interlagos tends to produce races like that: a short lap, a long uphill drag to the line that rewards straight-line speed, and weather that can change the running order in minutes.
Why Verstappen starts as favourite
Verstappen has the form, and he has the structural advantage of being Red Bull’s only contender. Ferrari has two cars in this fight, which means Hamilton and Leclerc will inevitably take points from each other. Russell has the fastest car of the four but has been outscored by his team-mate all year. I would back Verstappen to hold second, though a two-point margin over Hamilton is nothing at a circuit as unpredictable as Interlagos.
Russell, Brundle and the question of 2027
Martin Brundle’s assessment, reported by GPfans, was blunt: Russell needs to find an “overdrive” mode for 2027 or risk his future at Mercedes. Mexico did little to quieten that line of argument. Russell started second, alongside Hamilton on the front row, suffered a problem on the opening lap that Mercedes has since explained, and finished sixth.
It would be unfair to judge his season on one race. Russell has won three grands prix and sits fourth in the championship, ahead of Leclerc and Lando Norris. In most seasons that would be a respectable return.
The difficulty is context. Russell was the senior driver when Antonelli arrived, the one expected to lead Mercedes into the new regulations. Instead, he has been beaten comprehensively by a team-mate who is now champion. Valtteri Bottas spent five years as a capable partner to Hamilton at Mercedes before the team moved on, and his points deficits in those seasons were of a similar order to the one Russell now faces.
My view is that Brundle is right about the stakes but perhaps premature on the timescale. Mercedes values stability, and a driver who can win races when Antonelli has an off day is an asset in a constructors’ fight. Russell’s task over the final four rounds is simple to state and hard to deliver: beat his team-mate on merit at least once more, and finish ahead of Verstappen in the standings.
Ferrari’s long shot, and a new arrival for Leclerc
Leclerc and his wife Alexandra have announced the birth of their first child, who arrived the week before São Paulo. The couple married in a private ceremony in Monaco in February. Leclerc now joins the small group of fathers on the current grid, and our congratulations go to the family.
On track, Leclerc’s fourth place in Mexico helped Ferrari to its best weekend in some time. Hamilton and Leclerc scored 30 points between them to Mercedes’ 23. That trimmed the constructors’ gap to 126 points, with at least 172 still available to each team across the final four grands prix.
The title fight is mathematically alive and realistically very unlikely. Ferrari would need to outscore Mercedes by more than 31 points on average every weekend from here, which in practice means a Ferrari one-two with both Mercedes drivers in trouble, repeated several times. Even one more cracked sump would not be enough on its own.
What Ferrari can achieve is a strong finish, and that matters for next season. Second place in the constructors’ standings is effectively secure, with Red Bull 122 points further back. The real value of these last rounds lies in confirming whether the late-season gains are genuine development or simply the product of circuits that suited the car. Interlagos, with its mix of slow corners and long full-throttle sections, should give a clearer answer.
Cadillac’s ownership questions after a pointless debut season
The most significant off-track story concerns the sport’s newest team. According to Autosport and Crash.net, Mark Walter’s TWG Global is looking to sell some of its shares in Cadillac, and Fenway Sports Group (the Boston-based owner of Liverpool FC and the Red Sox) has emerged as a potential buyer, with Crash.net reporting interest in a majority stake.
None of this has been confirmed by the parties involved, and it should be treated as a report rather than a done deal. But it lands at a sensitive moment. Cadillac is last in the constructors’ championship and remains the only team without a point. In Mexico, Sergio Pérez finished 16th from 20th on the grid and Valtteri Bottas retired.
A pointless first season is not unusual for a new entrant, and two experienced drivers cannot disguise a car that is still some way off the midfield. The pace of a new team’s improvement depends less on its drivers than on the patience and funding behind it. That is why ownership matters more here than it might at an established squad.
Why an F1 stake appeals to sports investors
- Scarcity: With 11 teams on the grid and new entries hard to secure, an existing franchise carries significant value regardless of results.
- Commercial growth: F1’s audience expansion, particularly in the United States, makes a US-branded team attractive to an American sports group.
- Precedent: Several teams have attracted investment from wider sports and entertainment backers in recent years, treating F1 equity as a long-term asset rather than a short-term sporting project.
The risk for Cadillac is distraction. A change in majority ownership during the team’s formative years could disrupt investment decisions just as it needs consistent spending to climb the order. If Fenway does come in, its record of long-term stewardship in other sports could suit a project that will take several seasons to mature. The priority should be clarity, quickly.
On the radar
- A new face at Sky: Alexa Rendell joins Sky Sports F1’s presenting team from the São Paulo weekend. It is a notable addition to a line-up that has changed little in recent seasons.
- Interlagos weather: The forecast for São Paulo looks changeable, as it usually does. Rain would reshuffle the runner-up fight more than any other variable this weekend.
- Third in the constructors’: Red Bull scored 27 points to McLaren’s 10 in Mexico, breaking a tie between the two teams, and now leads by 17 points. With Norris fifth and Oscar Piastri only 13th, McLaren needs both cars scoring to respond.
- Lawson’s recovery drive: Liam Lawson went from 22nd on the grid to seventh for RB F1 Team, the drive of the day further down the order. His 83 points put him ninth in the standings.
- Haas versus Audi: Ryo Hirakawa’s point for 10th and Gabriel Bortoleto’s eighth place leave Haas only four points ahead of Audi in the fight for seventh, the tightest gap in the constructors’ table.
- Piastri’s search for answers: Thirteenth place leaves Piastri on 144 points, 77 behind his team-mate and still without a win in 2026. Four races offer little time to change the narrative, but enough for one good result to reset his winter.
Antonelli has the title; the four rounds from São Paulo onwards will settle the order behind him. Of the storylines heading into Brazil, Russell’s response to Brundle’s warning may prove the most consequential, and a runner-up finish would strengthen his case for 2027 far more than any comment from the paddock.