Max Verstappen and Liam Lawson’s punishments for their practice collision are the headline penalties on Formula 1’s 2026 Mexican Grand Prix starting grid.
Verstappen drops from fourth to fifth as a result of that ruling, while Lawson was initially set to fall from eighth to ninth but now looks like to be starting much lower than that as his Racing Bulls team has been called to the stewards over an MGU-K infringement.
The likely penalty for that is disqualification from the qualifying session, so Lawson could soon drop right to the back.
He’d join Valtteri Bottas – already the slowest qualifier, and also taking a 50-place grid penalty for taking fresh engine components in his Cadillac.
Provisional starting grid
1 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
2 George Russell (Mercedes)
3 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
4 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
5 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)*
6 Lando Norris (McLaren)
7 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull)
8 Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls)
9 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)*
10 Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
11 Nico Hulkenberg (Audi)
12 Franco Colapinto (Alpine)
13 Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
14 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi)
15 Ollie Bearman (Haas)
16 Carlos Sainz (Williams)
17 Alex Albon (Williams)
18 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
19 Ryo Hirakawa (Haas)
20 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
21 Sergio Perez (Cadillac)
22 Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac)**
* One-place grid penalty for practice collision** 50-place grid penalty for component changes
