Formula 1 heads to Mexico City for this weekend’s latest Grand Prix with focus more than ever on the top of the Drivers’ Championship after a dramatic Sprint weekend in Austin saw Lando Norris and Max Verstappen make further inroads into Oscar Piastri’s points lead.

And what had appeared a two-horse race between the McLaren drivers now having clearly increased to three thanks to the resurgent form of Red Bull’s reigning world champion Verstappen, we look at the some of the big questions being asked about the championship fight heading into the decisive final weeks of the season and give you the chance to have your say on some of those key talking points…

What’s the state of play heading to Mexico?

With five race weekends of the 2025 season to go in the space of the next seven weeks, the top three in the Drivers’ Championship are separated by just 40 points after last weekend’s United States Grand Prix.

Long-time leader Piastri leads McLaren team-mate Norris by 14 points while Red Bull’s reigning world champion Verstappen is now just 40 points back on the summit after three wins in the last four races.

Norris and Verstappen have outscored Piastri in each of the last four events.

There are a maximum of 141 points left up for grabs in the five Grand Prix and two Sprints that remain before the chequered flag waves on the campaign, in Abu Dhabi on December 7.

So we’ve got a three-way title-fight on our hands – is that common?

In recent history, no.

Forty points is actually the fewest points the top three drivers in the standings have been separated by at this stage of a season since 2012.

Back then the championship’s leading trio of Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were covered by 37 points with five races left, although the latter was only really a distant title contender and that season swiftly distilled into a two-driver shootout that went all the way to the wire.

So for F1’s last bona-fide title fight featuring at least three drivers you have to go back two further years to 2010.

Incredibly with five races to go of that season, just 21 points covered the top three (Mark Webber, Lewis Hamilton and Alonso) with two further drivers (Vettel and Jenson Button) also within 24 points.

All-bar Button stayed in mathematical contention to the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in what remains F1’s only four-way title decider. Vettel, third in the standings going into the showdown having not led the points table all season, ultimately won out for his maiden title.

So who’s going to win 2025’s title?

That’s the big question we have been asking you on the Sky Sports website and app this week in the above poll which is still running for you to cast a vote if you haven’t already.

But who’s actually the favourite?

Irrespective of where you look, the bookmakers’ odds for 2025’s champion have closed right up on the back of Verstappen’s win, Norris’ second and Piastri’s difficulties in Austin.

Piastri is still the narrow title favourite with some, while Verstappen is the narrow front-runner with others from the Australian despite still being the mathematical outsider, but overall there is little to choose between either of them and Norris too.

For all his recent setbacks, Piastri still crucially holds the points lead – which he has done ever since winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix back on April 20 – an advantage which, while steadily eroded over the last four race weekends, remains the equivalent of a third-place finish over Norris and a win plus a third place over Verstappen.

With seven race wins through the season, he has still stood on the podium’s top step more often than Norris and Verstappen (five apiece) too.

Piastri’s current buffer also means that while he could still get away with another Baku-like bad weekend and still potentially take the title, there’s less room for error for Norris and, certainly, almost still no room for any poor result for Verstappen at 40 points off the pace.

But Verstappen certainly has the momentum plus the experience on his side having been the only one of the three to win the world title at the top level with the Dutchman going for what would be a record-equalling fifth in a row.

Norris, meanwhile, has had the upper hand over Piastri recently on track in their head-to-head results which could be critical if he’s to pip his team-mate to that maiden crown.

Who’s got the quickest car for the run-in?

A tricky question to answer and one which, thanks to the unexpected developments of recent months, doesn’t necessarily have a definitive answer.

For most of the season the obvious answer was Piastri and Norris in a McLaren MCL39 that won 12 of the campaign’s first 15 grands prix

However, Red Bull’s upgrades to their RB21 car since the summer break, notably a new floor at Monza and front wing in Singapore, allied with what has been described as a change in the way they approach setting the car up for race weekends, has helped bring an energised Verstappen right back into the picture.

After back-to-back wins in the low-downforce conditions of Monza and Baku, the fact Verstappen was still then able to finish ahead of the McLarens on the high-downforce streets of Singapore – in a race he finished second to Mercedes’ George Russell – and then complete a Sprint-Grand Prix double on the more sweeping combination corners of Austin

Norris finished eight seconds behind Verstappen at COTA last Sunday, although McLaren took heart from the fact they believe he would have challenged the Red Bull for the win had he not dropped behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at the start.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told Sky Sports F1: “Not what we wanted, because we wanted the victory, but some encouraging results for the remainder of the season.

“We knew that we were a little compromised [by not finishing the Sprint] and, in a way, that reassures us even more that the pace is in the car and we need to do a good job of extracting this pace for the future races.”

Red Bull are optimistic they now have a car to fight everywhere although have denied they are now in a ‘dominant’ position themselves.

“In Zandvoort, after the shutdown, we were still probably half a second slower than them [McLaren] every lap, so I think that has now gone,” said Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies.

“We are in a situation where you go to a race weekend and you have three or four teams that can fight for the win if they extract everything their car can produce on that track, so I don’t think anyone is in a dominant position.

“Every remaining race will be about which one of these four teams is nailing the track layout, the conditions, the temperatures, the tyres, and then that guy will win the race.”

Whose car might suit what track?

Again, a question that would have been easier to predict earlier in the year than now given the surprises that recent races have thrown up in 2025’s late-season pecking order.

Taking the remaining circuits in turn, Mexico is an unusual venue in that the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez sits 2,285 metres above sea level and, although is a fast track, the thinner air has the effect of reducing downforce on the cars and means that while teams run high downforce levels the cars are as skittish at low-downforce Monza.

It makes for a tricky weekend for drivers, as Piastri found in 2024 when he was unexpectedly knocked out early in qualifying in Q1. He went on to recover to the points in seventh.

Ferrari were actually last year’s winners – the Scuderia’s last Grand Prix win – with Carlos Sainz and while Verstappen qualified on the front row next to the Spaniard, Norris took second in the race after the Dutchman’s day fell apart early when he picked up two quick-fire penalties for forcing the McLaren off track. Up until last year you would have described it as Red Bull track though, with Verstappen winning on five of F1’s previous six visits.

Sao Paulo is certainly a circuit that McLaren expect to go well. They were dominant in the dry last year before Verstappen spectacularly turned things on their head from a penalised 17th on the grid in a wet race to all-but extinguish his British rival’s then-title dreams.

Las Vegas has approved a bogey track for McLaren in its two years on the calendar with the team yet to qualify or finish higher than sixth on The Strip Circuit. Although it was little better for Verstappen last year (fifth) a year on from winning the inaugural event, with Mercedes dominant amid cool evening conditions.

Qatar and Abu Dhabi should play more to McLaren’s strengths, although Red Bull will feel reason for optimism too, with the former the only dry race Verstappen won in the final five months of 2024. Norris was the victor in Abu Dhabi last year to end a run of four consecutive Verstappen wins at the track.

Will McLaren prioritise one driver over the other?

We already know the answer to that one from McLaren themselves: it’s a firm ‘no’.

Having gone to great lengths – and, to some minds, well beyond – to ensure fairness and parity on track between Piastri and Norris to let them both race freely for the title, McLaren aren’t going to abandon their principles now with only 14 points in it between them despite the comeback of Verstappen making it a little less certain they will add the drivers’ to the constructors’ title they have already won for a first double since 1998.

As confirmed by Stella after Austin, McLaren “are not going to close the door unless this is closed by mathematics” on either driver.

And given the high likelihood that those intra-team mathematics remain at least within 25 points, the equivalent of one race win, over the forthcoming rounds, it’s unlikely one McLaren driver is going to be out of the hunt anytime before at least the end of the penultimate round in Qatar.

When might the title ultimately be decided?

Piastri’s dwindling lead has ensured one thing – the title fight is now guaranteed to go onto at least the first leg of the season-ending triple header at the end of November.

No matter what happens, the championship can’t be clinched at either of the next two races, in Mexico and Brazil.

The Las Vegas GP on November 23 is now the earliest it could be decided, although even that’s a long shot given the points leader would have to be 59 points ahead of his nearest challenger (or 58 if guaranteed to win an end-of-season tiebreak on wins). That’s 45 points more than Piastri leads Norris by now, for example.

That then likely takes us down to at least the penultimate round in Qatar, the Sprint weekend of November 28-30, when a driver would be champion if they finished the Lusail weekend at least 26 points (or 25 on countback) clear at the top.

Anything less than that and the battle for the 2025 crown goes to the wire in Abu Dhabi on December 7.

F1’s title fight hasn’t gone to the last two rounds since 2021, when Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton’s duel was infamously settled at the Abu Dhabi decider, and before then it was 2016 when Hamilton and Nico Rosberg also went to the wire in the desert.

Formula 1’s thrilling title race continues at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez for the Mexico City Grand Prix this weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime