Mercedes won the 2026 Formula 1 constructors' championship at Interlagos on Sunday, their ninth and their first since 2021.
They did it with a fourth place and a fifth, in a race in which both of their cars spun.
The grand prix was won by McLaren's Lando Norris, who started from pole, beat Max Verstappen and took his first victory since the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August.
Norris lost the lead at the start to Kimi Antonelli, who had qualified alongside him on the front row and who had tied up the drivers' title a week earlier.
Antonelli pulled away to a five-second advantage inside 10 laps, and led by more than eight seconds by lap 13. The track was drying, and Norris came in for slick tyres on lap 16.
Antonelli followed a lap later, which proved decisive. Norris had gained enough time to rejoin on the Mercedes' gearbox, and on lap 20 Antonelli lost control at the entry to Turn One, spun, and handed over the lead. He ran wide at the same corner four laps later and lost third place to Verstappen.
Russell's afternoon went wrong at the same moment as Norris's pit stop. Having started seventh and climbed to third, he spun at the pit lane exit on lap 16, sat broadside as rivals squeezed past on both sides, and rejoined 10th, 15 to 20 seconds down.
Both recovered. Russell drove back into contention for fourth and, with more pace than his team-mate over the closing laps, was waved past by the team as the title was sealed.
Verstappen finished second after starting 21st on the back of an engine penalty. Isack Hadjar was third, having been ordered to let Verstappen through on lap 39. Oscar Piastri took sixth, Lewis Hamilton ninth and Nico Hulkenberg the final point.
Antonelli and Charles Leclerc were each given five-second penalties after the race. Antonelli kept fifth; Leclerc dropped to eighth for causing a collision with Liam Lawson, who was promoted to seventh.
Norris, whose race was the cleanest of the front-runners, put his own afternoon simply. "The main thing today was that I just kept it cool and I did not make any mistakes," he said. "I had the pace when I needed to so it was good."
The championship, meanwhile, was settled on a different basis entirely. Norris made no mistakes and won the race. Mercedes made two and won the season.
This newspaper finds no fault in that outcome. A constructors' championship is a sum of points, and a sum is a scalar. It records how much, not which way.
The regulations are consistent on the point. A car that spins is not retired; it is delayed. Once it is classified, the classification is a number, and a number carries no heading.
Our analysts have searched the points table for a column recording the direction each car was travelling in at the time. There is no such column. There has never been one.
The Department of Unnecessary Research therefore records this championship as entirely regular. Mercedes went backwards twice at Interlagos and up once in the table, and only one of those movements is written down anywhere.