Ferrari's Spanish driver Carlos Sainz celebrates after winning the Mexico City Formula One Grand Prix. Photo: YURI CORTEZ/AFP
Ferrari's Carlos Sainz has won the Mexico City Grand Prix after Red Bull's Formula One leader Max Verstappen was twice punished for his driving against title rival Lando Norris and finished sixth.
McLaren's Norris was second to slash Verstappen's overall lead from 57 points to 47 with four rounds remaining, and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was third with a bonus point for fastest lap.
Triple world champion Verstappen, who pitted from third place to serve his two 10-second penalties on lap 27, had to fight back from 15th after starting on the front row with Sainz on pole position.
The Dutch driver had won five of the last six races in Mexico, including the last three editions, but has now not won for 10 races in a row.
New Zealand's Liam Lawson finished second to last in 16th spot just ahead of Red Bull's last placed Sergio Perez.
Late in the race, the RB driver was 13th race but was clipped by Williams driver Franco Colapinto him as he tried to pass Lawson.
Lawson then had to pit and have a replacement front wing installed meaning he dropped to 17th before overhauling Perez in the dying stages of the race.
RB's Liam Lawson races during the Mexico City Grand Prix at the Hermanos Rodriguez racetrack. Photo: YURI CORTEZ
Lawson played down the incident post race.
"It wasn't really his fault it was just a clumsy incident," Sky Sport said.
Earlier on the 19th lap he was involved in an incident with Red Bull's Sergio Perez as the pair went into a turn.
Perez was putting the blame squarely on Lawson.
"What the (expletive) is this idiot doing? Is he OK?" Perez said on the team radio.
Post race he was still annoyed.
"Coming together with Lawson was very unfortunate. I don't get it.. (he) damaged both of our races and I picked up massive damage on the side (of my car) and that was game over," Perez told Sky Sport.
"It was an incident that was totally avoidable."
Lawson was frustrated with the race.
"I think our pace was strong but we just spent the whole race behind another car. We had a brief few laps of clean air at the start which we maximised and we were moving forward but unfortunately in traffic we weren't able to overtake and it just hurt our race. We had the pace to score points but just wrong track position."
Lawson felt today's race wouldn't have helped his prospects of securing a full time drive next year with Red Bull which he is tipped to do.
"A race like today is not ideal for that so I am focused on the next few races to try and recover and score points for the team."
-Reuters / RNZ
