Mercedes is left digging through data to figure out why a victory slipped away in Brazil, marking the team's first podium-less grand prix of 2026, as The Race reports. Even though the squad sealed the constructors' championship with three rounds to spare—their first constructors' title in five years—the mood in the camp is defined by a strong feeling that a win was there for the taking.
The race unravelled through a pair of costly spins. George Russell spun right as he exited the pitlane on soft tyres, admitting he went high risk because he smelled an opportunity and paid the price. Shortly afterwards, Kimi Antonelli spun out of the lead while being hounded by Lando Norris. Antonelli initially recovered to second place, but quickly fell behind both Red Bull drivers to finish fifth, just behind Russell in fourth. World champion Antonelli was left very angry and disappointed, noting that the rear let go with no warning, though he felt something weird with the car as soon as he fitted the soft compound.
Despite the chaos, there were genuine flashes of speed. Russell noted that he showed really strong pace on the softs, claiming they had the fastest race pace on that tyre—a welcome feeling after a while without it. Russell also felt much more like himself over the weekend, delivering his first Antonelli-beating race performance since Baku based on a narrow 52-48% lap pace split in Antonelli's favor.
Yet both drivers hit a massive wall on the intermediate tyres in the final stint, losing all pace when the rain arrived. Russell admitted they honestly do not know what went wrong, floating a theory that being the first ones onto the inters on a drying track might have damaged the rubber on the outlap and sent them into a negative temperature spiral. Even Max Verstappen apparently reported similar struggles, adding to the mystery.
Team boss Toto Wolff pointed out that George is not someone who spins on a pitlane exit, and neither is Kimi, noting that both drivers reported very strange car behavior resembling a broken suspension or excessive tyre pressure. Wolff believes they got something wrong on pressures or set-up, pointing to rear tyres that were completely worn while the fronts looked like new. Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin acknowledged that fourth and fifth place wasn't quite how they wanted to secure the championship, but emphasized that they did what was needed while highlighting the encouraging signs in their underlying performance heading into the colder conditions of Las Vegas.
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