Lando Norris moved ahead of McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to lead Formula 1's championship for the first time since April with a dominant win at an entertaining Mexico City Grand Prix.
Norris brilliantly led from start to finish to take a one-point title lead over Piastri, who had been on top of the standings for 15 races since winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix early in the season.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc held off title outsider Max Verstappen in the closing laps for second position. Verstappen's late charge was thwarted by a virtual safety car period just as he appeared to be in range of the Ferrari driver -- he has moved to within 36 points of the title lead.
Piastri could only manage fifth, struggling to get past Haas driver Oliver Bearman late on. Bearman held on for fourth position -- the best result of his rookie year and equaling the best result in Haas' nine-year tenure on the grid.
Holding the position also ensured Norris will leave Mexico with the championship lead with four rounds and one sprint race to run.
"Beautiful weekend. Well done everyone. Incredible result," Norris said on the radio after one of the most complete performances of his career.
After the race, Norris was interviewed in front of the old baseball stadium which makes up the final section of the track. He said: "It's one weekend at a time. I'm happy, I'm focused on myself. I keep my head down, I ignore all of this. It's working at the moment so I'm happy."
The Mexico race was chaotic from the beginning, with Norris, Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen going four-wide into Turn 1 and Leclerc and Verstappen were forced to go wide across the chicane.
From that point, Norris disappeared into the distance, a perfect result for a driver who is peaking at the perfect moment as he eyes his first F1 championship.
Both Leclerc and Verstappen escaped any penalties for cutting the corner and their cars were in close proximity in the closing laps. It looked like Verstappen, who had swapped onto a much quicker strategy late on by putting on the quicker soft tire, was going to claim a remarkable second place after emerging over 20 seconds down at his final stop.
Just when it looked like Leclerc was a sitting duck on the penultimate lap, a yellow flag and then a virtual safety car neutralized the race and effectively saved second position for Ferrari. It cost Verstappen what might be three vital points in his own championship charge.
"It was very hectic at the beginning of the race for me. I almost crashed," Verstappen said after the race. "Everyone around me was on soft tires and we were on medium, so it was a bit of a struggle. It was about surviving the first stint. Once we bolted on the softs, I think we were a little bit more competitive and happier."
On the late virtual safety car, the Dutchman said: "You win some and you lose some. Sometimes the safety car works for you and sometimes it works against you.
"It was a difficult weekend for us, but to be fighting for P2 with everything that happened in the first few laps was a very strong result."
Meanwhile, Leclerc said the safety car "saved" his race. "Very happy with this weekend," he said. "Austin was very positive but to end up on the podium again is a great surprise. Very happy to be on this amazing podium again.
"I was quite happy about the VSC at the end! My tires were completely gone. I could see Max was coming back on the softs. It was tough, but the VSC saved me at the end."
Norris' victory represented a remarkable turnaround in his season. The Englishman was 34 points behind Piastri after retiring at the Dutch Grand Prix in early September. But Zandvoort was Piastri's last win to date -- he finished third a week later in Monza, where McLaren controversially asked him to give second position back to Norris at the end of the race, but failed to score podiums in Azerbaijan, Singapore, last weekend's U.S. Grand Prix and now the race in Mexico.
Piastri had to patiently wait to get past the Mercedes pair of Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell. Mercedes dithered on swapping its drivers at midrace when Antonelli was struggling to get past Bearman -- Russell fared little better and could not close the gap to the Haas driver. Piastri eventually passed Antonelli in the pit lane thanks to a rapid McLaren stop, before diving down the inside of Russell in the closing stages for what might still prove to be a decisive moment in his championship campaign.
Russell eventually let Antonelli back past for sixth, as had been part of the agreement to swap positions in the first place. Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton finished eighth behind in what will have been a brutally disappointing result after starting third.
A few corners earlier, in what felt like a rerun of some of their 2021 clashes, Verstappen had forced Hamilton wide while overtaking for position at Turn 1. Hamilton then got past by cutting Turn 4 altogether, only for the stewards to issue him a 10-second penalty.
The seven-time world champion was livid, as his radio message to Ferrari proved: "That's such bulls---, man."
Esteban Ocon rounded off an incredibly impressive weekend for Haas with two points in ninth, while Gabriel Bortoleto finished three seconds clear of struggling Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda for 10th position with the Sauber team.