Mercedes sabotaged George Russell's race in Mexico with an energy deployment failure that killed his launch from second on the grid. Russell qualified nine-thousandths behind Hamilton's pole but watched the field swarm past when the hybrid system failed to deliver. A 10-second penalty for first-lap contact with Isack Hadjar buried him further, and he limped home sixth while teammate Kimi Antonelli clinched the championship with third.
Toto Wolff's post-race apology went viral. "We completely let him down today again," the Mercedes boss told Sky. The blown start cost Russell more than position — he tumbled from second to fourth in the standings, trailing Verstappen by 11 and Hamilton by nine. Wolff admitted "the car just didn't work for him this year" — a brutal epitaph for a season that saw his teammate win the title in identical machinery.
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