Rain Soaks Interlagos, But the Constructors' Title Is Bought

Mercedes clinched its ninth constructors' championship at Interlagos on Sunday, November 8, 2026, with three races still to run. The team arrived in São Paulo with 630 points to Ferrari's 504, a lead of 126, and needed to outscore its rival by just three. George Russell's fourth place and Kimi Antonelli's fifth were worth 22 points. Ferrari took eight. Done. Three more weekends remain on the calendar, and the result is already settled by the arithmetic of money and machinery.

Who Has the Power

Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, summed it up after the race. "It was a very strong beginning of the season that got us over the line," he said. "I never thought this was ever possible." The title level Mercedes with Williams on nine, behind only McLaren with 10 and Ferrari with 16. It follows Mercedes' run of eight in a row from 2014 to 2021, after the company returned as a factory team in 2010, 16 years ago. The pattern holds: the sport rewards whoever can pour the most capital into the garage. Mercedes leads Ferrari 652 points to 510, according to one report, and with no sprint races left, Ferrari can score at most 129 more.

The championship also hands the drivers' crown to Antonelli, who clinched it in Mexico City about two weeks ago at 20 years and 68 days, the youngest champion in the sport's history. He leads the table on 390 points. At Interlagos he spun, made a mistake under braking entering the Senna S, nearly hit Verstappen at the Curva do Sol, and got a five-second penalty for an unsafe release from his pit box. He still set the fastest lap, a 1:12.689.

Who Gets Crushed

The two home drivers were left behind in front of their own crowd. Audi's Gabriel Bortoleto finished 16th. Haas rookie Rafael Câmara, making his F1 debut this weekend, started 11th and fell to 21st after 14 laps. He passed nobody on merit that day. Bortoleto and Sergio Pérez, driving the worst car on the grid, both went by him. He struggled on the dry-weather tyre and spun at the Senna S entrance. Finished 20th, two laps down.

The back of the field tells the same story as the front, just in reverse. Sergio Pérez, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Câmara all finished at least two laps behind. Valtteri Bottas of Cadillac didn't start. Lance Stroll of Aston Martin retired. Nobody at the bottom of the order gets to choose the car underneath them.

What They're Calling "Order"

The race itself ran on orders from above. On lap 39, Red Bull told Isack Hadjar, then running second, to let Max Verstappen pass so he could chase Lando Norris, who led by close to 10 seconds. The 22-year-old Frenchman moved over. Verstappen, who started 21st after penalties for power-unit changes, finished second, 14.6 seconds behind Norris. Hadjar took third, 24.5 seconds back. Estadão reported Verstappen's grid slot as 20th.

The stewards ran their own show. Charles Leclerc received a five-second penalty for causing a collision with Liam Lawson, which swapped them in the results, making Lawson seventh and Leclerc eighth. Oliver Bearman collected a five-second penalty too. The results, the report notes, are provisional until the FIA confirms them. The sport's governing body keeps the final word, and the points, the prize money and the titles all wait on it.

Norris led for 47 of the race's 71 laps and took his third win of the season, his second consecutive in Brazil, finishing 1h35min23s504 after the start. Neymar waved the chequered flag. Rain arrived on lap 62 and cars began slipping, with Lewis Hamilton spinning at the Curva do Café on his way to the pits. The lead fight wasn't affected.

Red Bull leads McLaren 415 to 398 for third in the team standings. Las Vegas comes next, scheduled for November 19 to 22, then Qatar on November 29 and Abu Dhabi on December 6. The cars keep circling. The title's already paid for.