Lewis Hamilton is on the brink of winning his sixth world championship after taking the chequered flag at Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix.

The British driver now needs to finish only eighth in Austin on Sunday to clinch this season's title.

Here, the PA news agency looks at five things we learned from the 18th round of the campaign in Mexico.

History beckons for Hamilton

There is a solid argument to say that Max Verstappen should have won for a third consecutive time at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Verstappen put his Red Bull on pole, but then talked himself into a three-place grid penalty. He ran off the road with Hamilton at the second corner, dropping further down the field, before colliding with Valtteri Bottas on lap four and suffering a right-rear puncture. To his credit, Verstappen then completed the remaining 66 laps on only one set of tyres, while navigating his way from last to sixth. But the Dutchman, who last won at the German Grand Prix in July, will head to Austin wondering what might have been.

Steady Albon set to be retained by Red Bull

Alex Albon made the first big mistake of his Red Bull career when he crashed out of second practice here on Friday. But the London-born rookie recovered to split the Mercedes drivers and qualify fifth. He ran as high as third in the race, but a two-stop strategy cost him two positions. Following his mid-season promotion from Toro Rosso, the 23-year-old has finished fifth, sixth, sixth, fifth, fourth and fifth. And it is that sort of consistency which is set to earn him a full season with Red Bull in 2020.

F1 bosses abandon reverse grids

It emerged in Mexico that Formula One chiefs have been forced to abandon plans to stage reverse-grid races next year. The sport's American owners Liberty Media held talks with the teams about revamping qualifying in a bid to spice up the show. The proposal was to trial a reverse-grid race, determined by championship order, at three rounds next year. The outcome of which would settle the starting positions of Sunday's grand prix. Hamilton and Vettel were both critical of the plans, and their respective Mercedes and Ferrari teams are understood to have voted down the idea. Ross Brawn, F1's managing director, said: "The teams initially agreed with it and then two teams put their hand up at the last meeting and said they wouldn't. It's frustrating."