Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) is fuming: “We lost the win because of Leclerc!”

Second place for Ferrari superstar Lewis Hamilton in the spectacular Mexican Grand Prix at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez: Hamilton narrowly missed out on his 107th Grand Prix victory and stood on the podium for the 209th time in the premier class.

It was clear to see from the seven-time world champion’s expression after the 19th F1 World Championship race of the 2026 season: he could have achieved more in this race. But shortly after the start, there was first a fierce battle with his team-mate Charles Leclerc, who promptly took the lead, followed by some hair-raising moments with Max Verstappen, where Hamilton suspected foul play.

In between, Hamilton growled over the radio: “We’ve got big problems, we’ve really got very big problems.”

Hamilton felt that Leclerc should have given a position back to him, but that was no longer possible because the Monegasque driver was already in the lead ahead of Verstappen, with Hamilton in third place.

So the race control team handed Leclerc a five-second penalty, which cost him the win against Verstappen, but it cost Hamilton even more, who said over the radio: “That’s not a penalty at all, because Leclerc can drive out in the clear up there, whilst I’m stuck here in Verstappen’s slipstream. That’s not on.”

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Fuming with rage, Hamilton went into the restart (following the race being red-flagged due to Valtteri Bottas’s crash), but Verstappen got everything right at the second standing start too, and on top of that at a further restart following a safety car period caused by Arvid Lindblad’s crash.

Hamilton, who’d had such high hopes of victory after securing pole position, said: “First of all, a huge compliment to Kimi and the Mercedes team. Kimi is now the youngest champion we’ve ever had – I mean, how phenomenal is that? I’m proud to have been able to experience that at close quarters.”

“It was a tough day. We had the pace today to win this Grand Prix, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Now we need to see what we can do better behind the scenes.”

“We’d agreed in the drivers’ briefing with all the drivers and the FIA: if you’re off the track at the first corner, you have to give the position back.”

“A year ago, I received a 10-second penalty here for a similar manoeuvre; now Charles has been given 5 seconds.”

“That cost us the win, no doubt about it. We need to have a very serious discussion.”