What does new points leader Lando Norris's dominant Mexican Grand Prix victory mean for the 2025 Formula 1 title race?
Our writers give their take on Norris's crushing win, Max Verstappen's unlikely charge to a podium place, and Oscar Piastri's recovery to finish fifth.
Perfect for F1's title race
Scott Mitchell-Malm
This was close to the perfect race from a championship perspective.
Norris has produced one of his A-list weekends and was a dominant, deserved winner. It's a great way to claim the points lead and signals emphatically that he should not have been forgotten about when the focus was previously on Piastri as the points leader and Verstappen as the chaser.
Verstappen, though, has scored a podium and comes away from Mexico closer to the top of the standings than he arrived - which, given how concerned he sounded after qualifying, is a great result for him and keeps his momentum going. It could have been second too without that seemingly pointless virtual safety car.
And Piastri, while disappointed to lose the lead for sure, must count this as a pretty good result. He's still right there, and he raced well. To come away fifth and mitigate the damage after a race in which he was unlucky to lose ground at the start then again around the first pitstops, is actually a fine effort. It might also go some way to restoring some confidence.
The point is that this shapes the battle as a three-way fight when, based on qualifying, we could have been talking about Verstappen slipping back and Piastri capitulating.
A title won on the bad days?
Jon Noble
Nothing is won yet. And equally nothing is lost. But what is definite is that we have a thrilling three-way title fight on our hands.
So much is often said about momentum when it comes to championship success, but right now we are in a situation where it is hard to see anyone getting a head of steam.
Yes, Norris was superb in Mexico on a weekend when Piastri and Red Bull were off their best, but things can reset so quickly in F1.
There are four very different track layouts coming up, which will shuffle the performance variables properly between Norris, Oscar and Verstappen.
Plus, the McLaren and Red Bull cars have different strengths in different areas; and neither team seems to have the perfect run-in they may want.
Perhaps in the end the title isn't going to be won by the winning on the good days. It may well come down to how good you are on your bad days...and one properly big slip up could yet prove to be a defining moment.
Let's hope F1 has this kind of excitement in 2026
Gary Anderson
Norris’s weekend went exactly as he needed, pole and a win by 30 seconds is basically the definition of a good day in the office. Total domination.
That, combined with Piastri’s having another off weekend and Verstappen only dragging third out of a car that wasn’t on the pace from lap one in practice means Norris now leads the championship by one solitary point.
The season started with everyone on zero points and to end up with one point between the top two after 20 races just shows how competitive a season we are having.
Verstappen is now just a little closer, 35 points behind Piastri and 36 behind Norris, so it’s not over yet for any of the top three, but with only four grands prix and two sprint races left, that’s a total of 116 points up for grabs.
I’m pretty sure the battle is going to be between the two McLaren drivers, but for sure for either it’s not going to be easy and for either mistakes or a reliability problem will very quickly scupper their chances.
A great race today, and I hope we will be able to say that in 2026 after this major regulation change for next year.
The 2024 pattern Piastri hasn't escaped
Josh Suttill
Piastri has tackled more or less every weakness he'd had in his short F1 career, winning at circuits including Shanghai, Jeddah and Barcelona this year where he'd previously struggled.
But he's unfortunately repeating a pattern from his 2024 season: struggling for pace relative to Norris across Singapore/Austin/Mexico.
Albeit with some caveats, that poor run somewhat continued into Brazil and Las Vegas - the next two F1 races, which will be very troubling for Piastri.
It could quickly become a two-horse race between Norris and Verstappen if Piastri can't arrest that slump.
Piastri did make an impressive move on Russell into Turn 1, but he can't escape the fact that he finished 42s behind his team-mate, who he hasn't outscored since Zandvoort in late-August (when Norris retired).
