Starting fifth on the grid at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Verstappen crossed the line 0.799 seconds clear of Lewis Hamilton for his third win of the 2026 season and a sixth victory at the circuit.

The puzzle was what his car did on the way into corners.

“It happens randomly. The engine just decides by itself what to do, to be honest,” Verstappen told reporters after the race, as reported by RacingNews365.

Verstappen said he had no clear cause for the behaviour and no clear fix. In lieu of a diagnosis, he offered a joke.

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“Maybe I need to have a conversation with the engine before going into the race. Maybe it has to behave better.”

He linked part of the behaviour to Mexico City’s altitude and heat loading, which pushed the turbocharger and surrounding systems hard across the race distance.

A win on the day the title went elsewhere

Verstappen’s victory came on the same afternoon Kimi Antonelli clinched the 2026 drivers’ championship. The Mercedes driver finished third behind Hamilton to become Formula 1’s youngest-ever world champion, with Verstappen’s win no longer able to swing the standings.

That left the Red Bull driver with a weekend result but no title weight on it, and an unexplained engine quirk still inside the car.

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Interlagos next

The São Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos is next, with the race scheduled for 2pm local time on Sunday 8 November, round 21 of the 2026 season.

Verstappen told reporters on Sunday he had no diagnosis of the Mexico problem yet. Red Bull’s engineers have less than a week to find one before cars are back on track at Interlagos.

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