Mexico City is a high-altitude, high-reward circuit. The engines breathe differently up there, and teams spend FP1 and FP2 balancing and tyre behaviour more than outright lap time. That dynamic was obvious in the sessions: the practice narrative was a mix of Red Bull showing strong single-lappers and McLaren quietly confirming race pace.

Max Verstappen topped FP2 after the teams had used the bulk of Friday to test tyre modes and long runs, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli close behind on the timesheet. For the weekend, Verstappen’s pace in FP2 looked like a timely reminder that Red Bull still had the speed if they could put everything together on Saturday. Meanwhile, Lando Norris was consistently near the sharp end on long runs, a hint that McLaren’s race package might be the one to beat once rubber and fuel numbers were real. 

Oscar Piastri’s weekend started a little differently: his times weren’t matching expectations. Piastri, who entered the weekend with a championship lead, found himself off the pace in practice and couldn’t quite unlock the same grip as his teammate. That discrepancy would turn into a key subplot by Sunday. 

Qualifying at the Hermanos Rodríguez threw up the kind of mix you get when drivers and engineers chase maximum aggression on low downforce in thin air. Lando Norris put in a composure-filled run to take pole with a lap that left him over two-tenths clear of Charles Leclerc. 

Ferrari showed unexpectedly strong one-laps with Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton (who slotted into Q3, showing that Ferrari’s package was competitive this weekend). George Russell and then Max Verstappen managed to split the midfield as the grid shaped into what would become a tactical race. 

Oscar Piastri’s qualifying was a headache for McLaren. The championship leader could only manage P8 (moved to P7 after a grid penalty elsewhere), admitting afterward that he was “puzzled” by the lack of speed relative to Norris. That mystery set the scene: McLaren suddenly had two drivers in very different grooves just when the title fight was getting tighter. 

Lights out, and the story was immediate. Norris executed a near-perfect getaway and managed to thread his car through a lap-one scramble that collected a few drivers and reshaped the order behind him. From there, it was the kind of clinical drive you want to see from a championship contender: Norris kept his head down, managed his tyres, and never gave the leaders behind a sniff at the lead.

Charles Leclerc took advantage of a strong race pace to chase Norris and secure P2, while Max Verstappen, despite his poor qualifying relative to his season standard, worked his way to third and minimized damage to his championship hopes. Oliver Bearman and Oscar Piastri were among the drivers who recovered well; Bearman put in a mature, opportunistic drive to finish in the top five, while Piastri made steady progress from his compromised grid slot to score points, but not the kind that will quiet the fodder about his qualifying struggles.

What made Norris’s win notable wasn’t just that he led every lap; it was the margin. He finished comfortably over thirty seconds ahead of Leclerc, a demonstration that McLaren’s race balance and tyre management were the weekend’s defining strengths. That lights-to-flag dominance also changed the championship dynamics in a heartbeat. 

This is where Mexico mattered most. Lando Norris’s victory vaulted him into the lead of the drivers’ standings, but only by a razor-thin margin. After the Mexico City result, McLaren sits in a remarkably strong position: their drivers hold P1 and P2 in the championship, with a minuscule gap separating teammates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. The constructors’ picture is more congested but looks favorable for McLaren; the team’s consistency across both cars (even with Piastri’s odd weekend) has them well-placed as the season winds down. 

Max Verstappen’s podium keeps him very much in the hunt. He’s trailing, but the gap is not insurmountable if Red Bull can extract pace from their car in the upcoming races and Verstappen can string together wins. Ferrari and Mercedes both left Mexico with positive takeaways: Ferrari’s one-two single-lap speed with Leclerc and Hamilton showed their car is competitive, while Mercedes’s Russell and Antonelli had strong midfield runs, suggesting reliability and pace are returning at a useful clip. 

With only a handful of races to go, Mexico feels like a title momentum point rather than a decisive blow. Norris’s new lead is significant psychologically; he now carries the leader’s weight, but it’s a one-point margin (per some reports), which means the championship is effectively still anyone’s if the next few rounds produce swings. For Piastri, the lesson is immediate: he must rediscover whatever edge he had earlier in the year or risk losing the advantage his early consistency gave him. 

For Verstappen, Mexico was a reminder that even with the odd off-weekend, he’s never out of it. Red Bull’s racecraft and engine performance remain formidable when the stars align. 

Strategically, teams will be tracking tyre windows and downforce balance tweaks closely. Mexico’s high altitude rewards power and efficiency and punishes cars that can’t manage tyre temperatures, lessons worth learning before the season’s final sprint. Expect Red Bull to tinker and Ferrari to try to convert single-lap strength into more consistent race days. McLaren will be focused on keeping both cars reliable and extracting clean starts like the one Norris executed on Sunday. 

Mexico City, with its stadium roar and passionate fans, is one of the season’s emotional high points. The image of Norris celebrating in front of tens of thousands of vocal supporters, a green-cap salute and a calm grin, felt like a nod to a driver finally converting promise into momentum. The crowd energy, the backstory of teammates jockeying for supremacy, and the tense little dramas across the midfield make this a weekend that will be replayed and debated by pundits for weeks.

The field moves on quickly. Expect talk of setup maps, tyre choices, and how to handle the next circuit’s characteristics to dominate team radio for the next few days. For fans, the key things to track are whether Piastri rediscovers qualifying pace, whether Red Bull can extract single-lap speed from Verstappen again, and whether McLaren can maintain the composure that turned pole into a dominant win in Mexico. With the championship a hair’s breadth apart, every practice session and pit-stop call from here on out will feel more consequential than before.

The 2025 Mexico Grand Prix was the kind of weekend that can tilt a title fight, if only by a degree. Lando Norris and McLaren seized that degree and turned it into a lead, for now. But motorsport is a long game; Mexico provided drama, clarity on a few team strengths, and fresh questions about the competitors we thought we knew. With only a handful of rounds left, the season has just tightened into the kind of endgame every fan dreams of: small margins, big personalities, and a championship that could still go any which way.