Formula 1 News: FIA explains Mexico VSC that helped Norris and screwed Verstappen and Piastri

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez pulsed like a living heart under the October sun, its concrete veins thrumming with the roar of engines and the fevered chants of 120,000 souls. It was lap 70 of 71 in the Mexico City Grand Prix, and the air crackled with the kind of tension that turns races into legends—or scandals.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Lando Norris had vanished into the distance hours ago, his McLaren a silver bullet claiming victory and the championship lead with predatory ease. But behind him, the hunt was on, a knife-edge duel for scraps of glory and points that could rewrite destinies.

Max Verstappen gripped the wheel of his Red Bull like a man clinging to a cliff face, his eyes locked on the scarlet Ferrari ahead. “One more corner,” Max muttered into his radio, his voice a gravelly whisper over the engine’s howl. “I’ve got him.”

Further back, in the midfield maelstrom, Oscar Piastri weaved through the chaos like a shadow. The young Australian’s McLaren danced on the edge of disaster, hunting down Oliver Bearman’s Haas for fourth. Oscar’s championship dreams hung by a thread; he led the standings by a whisper, but Lando’s win had him glancing in the mirrors more than the track. Bearman’s car bucked ahead, a stubborn mule refusing to yield, and Oscar floored it into Turn 14, the stadium section rising like an ancient coliseum around them. “Closing, closing,” his engineer crackled. “Push now— you’ve got the move.”

Then, the world tilted.

Carlos Sainz’s Williams snapped sideways in the runoff beyond Turn 14, his car stranded in the Foro Sol’s unforgiving embrace. No dramatic crash, no sparks—just a quiet, ominous halt. Sainz killed the engine, vaulted from the cockpit, and jogged away, helmet askew, as acrid wisps curled from the chassis. Fire. The word slithered through race control like poison.

“Virtual Safety Car, Virtual Safety Car,” the marshal’s call echoed across the timing screens. Delta times froze the field in neutral purgatory, engines throttled back to a mournful drone. Max’s charge evaporated mid-lunge; his RB21 under the rear wing of Leclerc’s Ferrari, close enough to taste the exhaust, but the moment shattered. “What the hell?” Max barked, his Dutch accent sharpening like a blade. No response—just the sterile beep of compliance. Behind, Oscar’s lunge on Bearman aborted in a puff of dust.

The VSC lingered like a bad dream, barely a half-lap’s mercy—long enough to douse the flames licking Sainz’s car, short enough to mock the warriors denied their kill. Marshals in flame-retardant suits swarmed the scene, heaving the Williams behind the barriers as if hiding a corpse. And then, as abruptly as it had dawned, the green lights flashed with only 1/2 lap to go and no place to pass. The die was cast.

It was clear to everyone watching a VSC was not needed; Sainz drove to a safe place. It was thrown to help the British driver – Lando Norris – gain points on his rivals. The Pro-British bias continues in F1

Why the Virtual Safety Car was used on Lap 70 in Mexico… ⚠️⤵️

Carlos Sainz spun and stopped at Turn 14 and the car began smoking, meaning marshals would need to enter the track causing a VSC to be deployed 👇#F1 #MexicoGP pic.twitter.com/WspBSb8Zyz

— Formula 1 (@F1) October 27, 2025

Leclerc nursed his second place home, the P2 trophy a borrowed crown clutched tight. In parc fermé, sweat-streaked and grinning, he pulled off his helmet. “That VSC? Yeah, it probably saved my bacon,” he admitted to the swarm of microphones, his Monegasque lilt laced with sheepish relief. “Max was breathing down my neck—literally. But racing’s full of these moments. I’ll take the points and run.”

Max, meanwhile, rolled to a stoic third, the championship noose tightening another notch. He’d stormed into Mexico 40 points adrift of the leaders, a deficit that felt like a death sentence. Now? Just 36 behind Norris, who basked in the cool-down room like a king. Three points lost—not to speed or skill, but to a puff of smoke and a rulebook’s cold logic.

Yet as he peeled off his gloves, Max shrugged, the fire in his eyes banked but unquenched. “No, not really fussed,” he said, flashing that trademark half-smile that hid a storm. “Sometimes the safety car’s my best mate. Sometimes it stabs you in the back. You win some, you lose some. That’s the game.”

Oscar Piastri’s agony cut deeper, a silent blade. His 4th-place gamble had crumbled; Bearman held firm, and the points flipped like a coin in the wind. Lando’s triumph vaulted him to the top, leaving Oscar trailing by one— a single, cruel point that echoed louder than the podium anthems. In the McLaren garage, mechanics averted their eyes as the Aussie stalked past, his race suit unzipped to the waist, revealing the tattoos of a fighter marked by close calls.

The FIA’s postmortem arrived like a judge’s gavel that evening, crisp and unyielding. “Sainz spun into the runoff at Turn 14, halting in an exposed spot,” their spokesperson intoned, voice steady as a metronome. “Smoke led to fire alerts—marshal intervention was non-negotiable. Standard procedure: VSC until recovery, then green flags. No more, no less.”

The paddock buzzed with whispers—conspiracy in the shadows of the pit lane, where engineers dissected telemetry like coroners at an autopsy. Had the FIA timed it to protect the show? Punish the frontrunners? Or was it just racing’s capricious god, indifferent to heroes? Sainz, sidelined and seething, lit up X with a single post: “Sorry, mates. Smoke and mirrors—didn’t mean to rewrite the standings.”

As the sun dipped behind the stadium’s jagged silhouette, casting long shadows over the cooling track, the circus packed up for Sao Paulo. Max fired up his sim rig in the motorhome, already plotting revenge. Leclerc toasted with the Ferrari crew, the P2 champagne a fragile shield. Oscar stared at the points table on his phone, the ” -1″ glowing like a taunt, fueling a hunger that would simmer through the Mexican twilight.

In the end, the Mexico VSC wasn’t a heist or a fix—just a spark in the dry tinder of ambition, igniting debates that would flicker through the off-season. Racing doesn’t bend to fairness; it devours the bold and spits out survivors. And in the championship’s brutal arithmetic, those three lost points lost by Verstappen? They weren’t just numbers. They were the ghosts that would haunt the final lap in Abu Dhabi.