Mercedes wrapped up the 2026 Constructors' Championship at Interlagos on Sunday, with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli finishing fourth and fifth in a chaotic São Paulo Grand Prix won by Lando Norris. The McLaren driver converted pole into his third victory of the season, completing the 71 laps in 1:35:23.504 and crossing the line 14.602 seconds clear of Max Verstappen, who stormed from 21st on the grid to second. Isack Hadjar, in his first season at Red Bull, completed the podium 24.485 seconds adrift. Changeable weather shaped the afternoon: the race started on intermediates, switched to slicks as the track dried and finished on wet-weather tyres once the rain returned in the closing laps. Antonelli, starting second, seized the lead from Norris at the first corner and pulled five seconds clear within seven laps, only to spin at Turn 1 on lap 20 and surrender the lead. Russell had his own scare, spinning at the pit-lane exit after his stop and glancing the barrier. Late on, Mercedes swapped their cars twice: Russell let Antonelli through on lap 57, and once the Briton had switched to fresh intermediates at the end of lap 61, Antonelli handed fourth place back. The Silver Arrows arrived in Brazil 126 points clear of Ferrari, needing to leave with a lead of at least 129 to seal the title with three races to spare. Fourth and fifth did the job. Charles Leclerc was classified eighth after a five-second penalty for a late collision with Liam Lawson, while Lewis Hamilton, making his 400th Grand Prix start, charged from 20th to ninth on the opening lap but had to hand a place back to Oliver Bearman for passing him off track. He later spun and came home ninth. Oscar Piastri took sixth for McLaren and Lawson seventh for Racing Bulls.
The constructors' crown completes a championship double for Mercedes, arriving just a week after Antonelli became the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history at the Mexico City Grand Prix. Between them, he and Russell have won 12 Grands Prix this season, nine for the Italian and three for the Briton. "We secured the championship. I think this is the most important [thing]. Thank you for surviving!" Toto Wolff told Russell over the radio after the chequered flag. "Well done, everybody. It's great to see what we have achieved this year," came the reply. Speaking to James Hinchcliffe, the team principal began with a nod to the hosts: "First of all, everybody here at Interlagos and in São Paulo, it has been a real blast. Thank you for having us. It's amazing." Wolff made no secret of how bumpy the run-in had been. "It was a very strong beginning of the season and that got us over the line, but also these last few races have been challenging at times. Today, it was difficult, but overall, I'm so proud of the organisation," he said. Russell struck a similar note. "We achieved what we came here to do and won the Constructors' Championship. We would have liked to have done it in a bit more style, but it's an incredible achievement for everyone in the team," he said. Behind Antonelli's breakthrough stands Peter Bonnington, Mercedes' head of race engineering, known throughout the paddock as Bono. He engineered six of Lewis Hamilton's seven world titles before guiding the young Italian through his first two seasons, and Wolff has called him "the best in the business". "They have done an incredible year and it's an amazing group of people, who push every day to do their best and give us the best opportunity to fight for wins and championships," Antonelli said of the team. Wolff summed up the secret in his own way: "I always say there are not two superstars, the drivers, but there are 2,500 superstars, all of them delivering a great job, being all of us contributing to such a championship."
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It is Mercedes' ninth Constructors' title and their first since a run of eight straight crowns from 2014 to 2021. The team, which builds its chassis at Brackley and its engines at Brixworth, now sits level with Williams in joint third on the all-time list, behind only McLaren on 10 and Ferrari on 16. Tellingly, it is the first of those nine titles won without Hamilton in the line-up. The ground-effect regulations introduced in 2022 brought the eight-year reign to an end and ushered in four lean seasons in which Mercedes finished third, second, fourth and second, although Russell and Hamilton still managed seven Grand Prix wins between them in that spell. Wolff knows how rare such a recovery is. "We've taken a few years to be back on the top spot. Not many teams have been able to come back from such a situation, and it just shows the great work, the great people that we have in our organisation, and it's fantastic to be among them," he said. Looking back on the crisis, the Austrian admitted: "The thing is when you are in these difficult moments, like we all are sometimes in our lives, it's not that easy to keep going." He went further: "I think those last four years were very difficult between getting it wrong, then kind of understanding why it was wrong and then realising no we didn't understand."
