You can read the race report here:
That’s all from me, thanks for reading. Bye.
RACE CLASSIFICATION (LAP 71/71): @nico_rosberg converts 20th pole position into a 12th career win #MexicoGP pic.twitter.com/0XuQ8Ju9P9
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 1, 2015
Nigel Mansell interviews the drivers on the podium whilst getting thoroughly drowned out by a wonderfully boisterous Mexican crowd. He attempts some Spanish. He shouldn’t have.
Nico Rosberg: “It was terrific battle with Lewis. This is really the best podium of the year – what a place to win.”
Lewis Hamilton: “Nico drove a fantastic race. I’ve never seen a crowd like this, it’s like a football game.”
Bottas holds aloft the third placed trophy, a hard earned podium from 6th on the grid. A slightly muted champagne spraying amongst the ticker tape, and here come the interviews. Who will it be this week? Schwarzenegger? Cumberbatch? No, it is actually a former racing driver: it’s Nigel Mansell.
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Hamilton and Rosberg exchange their traditional sans-eye-contact handshake before scuttling up to the podium. This week’s customary prop stereotype is of course the sombrero, which is politely doffed by all for the German national anthem.
1 ROS 2 HAM 3 BOT 4 KVY 5 RIC 6 MAS 7 HUL 8 PER 9 VES 10 GRO 11 MAL 12 ERI 13 SAI 14 BUT 15 RSI 16 STE #MexicoGP pic.twitter.com/P00wCQr6OY
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 1, 2015
Rosberg pulls over in front of a packed crowd, jumps up onto his Mercedes and drinks in the applause. Relief might be the overriding emotion, a momentary escape from the constant Hamilton bombardment he has had to endure for much of the season. With Vettel’s retirement Rosberg has moved back up to second in the drivers’ standings.
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Nico Rosberg wins the 2015 Mexican Grand Prix!
Final lap: Time and time again Hamilton has found a new fastest lap of the race, and on each occasion his team-mate has responded to keep his advantage. Rosberg maintains that show of control all the way to the line to claim victory, his fourth win of the season.
Lap 70: The Mercedes are battling for the maximum points while the two Lotus drivers joust for P10 and a solitary championship point. Grosjean has the advantage but Maldonado is 0.7 secs down with one lap to go.
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Lap 69: Hamilton picks up another tenth in the middle sector but is still just outside DRS reach.
Lap 68: Hamilton throws in a barnstormer to set the new fastest lap of the race. Can Rosberg respond once more? The gap is down to 1.4 secs with three laps to play.
Lap 66: Maldonado is the width of a Pirelli tyre from slamming into the wall but manages to wrench his Lotus back on to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit, down in P11. The website won’t need updating today, it seems.
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Lap 64: Seven laps of the 71 remain and Hamilton is running out of time to stop his team-mate claiming the first Mexican Grand Prix for 23 years. The gap is almost 2 secs.
Lap 62: Max Verstappen is being Max Verstappen, all his uninhibited youthful aggression on display. The crowd aren’t much impressed though as he looks to get by, or force a mistake from, Sergio Pérez.
Lap 60: Williams sense an opportunity and tell Massa as much as he bears down on a couple of Red Bulls in 4th and 5th. Three laps after the safety car DRS is back in business, but Hamilton is more than 1 sec behind Rosberg and isn’t allowed to use the helping hand.
Lap 58: The safety car turns into the pits. Rosberg keeps his distance as the cars stack up behind him. Suddenly the Mercedes snaps into action. Hamilton reacts well but not as well as Bottas, who attacks Kvyat, takes P3 and even gets a look at the world champion before he slams the door. Further back, Nasr reports “my brakes are finished” and retires.
Updated
Lap 56: The lapped cars are given the nod to overtake the safety car and catch up, and whistle past the two Mercedes patiently weaving from side to side.
Top 10 after 56 laps
Rosberg
Hamilton
Kvyat
Bottas
Ricciardo
Massa
Hülkenberg
Pérez
Verstappen
Grosjean
Lap 54: Bottas pits from third as the safety car comes out. Vettel’s car is hoisted away from the track as yellow flags continue to wave.
SAFETY CAR (LAP 53/71): Vettel goes into the barrier at Turn 7 #MexicoGP pic.twitter.com/APmjr7fWc4
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 1, 2015
Sebastian Vettel crashes out!
Lap 53: Ricciardo brakes late into turn 1 and holds the inside line to jump to fifth. On the other side of the track Vettel suddenly loses control at the same point on the circuit where he spun earlier and clatters into the cushioned barriers. His all-action race is finally run. “I crashed, again turn 7,” reports a forlorn-sounding Vettel. “I’m OK.”
Lap 51: Hamilton isn’t too chuffed with that decision to stop, and is making his point clearly over team radio. Clearly he thinks he could have got to the end of the race without pitting. Elsewhere in the pack, Massa is having to defend hard against the Red Bull of Ricciardo in his mirrors to retain P5.
Lap 49: “We are converting to plan B,” Rosberg is told on radio, and he moves into the pits. Hamilton is the new race leader but will he go to the end without stopping? No is the answer, and he responds immediately with his own stop. “Can I ask why,” says Hamilton. Mercedes are worried about tyre degradation and explain that they don’t think his second set of tyres would have lasted until the end of the race. His stop is almost identical in time to Nico’s, and Rosberg retakes the lead.
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Lap 46: Tit for tat as Rosberg responds to Hamilton’s fastest lap with one of his own. For the first time in several grands prix he appears in total control of the race – and of his team-mate’s race. Mercedes get on the radio to Rosberg: “The gap to Lewis is...”
“Don’t tell me anymore!” comes the reply.
Lap 44: Hamilton has taken a little bit of time out of Rosberg in the last few minutes after firing in another fastest lap; the gap is now 2.4 secs.
Lap 42: “Let him by, let him by,” say Ferrari to Vettel, who has blue flags waved furiously at him from the side as he refuses to budge for the cars lapping his. “I’m quicker than him,” is the German’s short reply.
Lap 40: At the front the gap between the two Mercedes drifts this way and that, but right now Hamilton is 2.9 secs behind the race leader, Rosberg.
Lap 37: Vettel pits and puts on the medium tyres. It’s an efficient 2.3 secs stop. He returns in P14, and is about to suffer the relative indignity of being lapped by Lewis Hamilton.
Lap 35: The main grandstand lets up a roar as Sergio Pérez attacks Carlos Sainz who is forced off the track to hold P9. Sainz is given a nudge by Toro Rosso over team radio to move over for Pérez to give up the spot, and the Mexican is back where he started the race.
Lap 33: Hamilton has his foot to floor and goes purple with a 1:22.110, the fastest lap of the race. That gap to Rosberg is already slashed to 2.3 secs.
Lap 31: That gap between the leaders is 3.5 secs, a fair wedge of time to make up with no more stops scheduled. Mercedes to Rosberg over team radio: “They [his previous tyres] were worn down to 10%, so manage the tyres you’ve got.” Button comes in, the last driver to pit.
Lap 29: Hamilton stays out for another lap to try and eke out a gap to Rosberg, but the Briton is not lapping as quickly as his team-mate with the fresh prime tyres. Can Hamilton return in front? The answer is no, but the rest of the pack are a long way back and looks like this will be a Mercedes duel to the end. It seems these two are not planning on stopping again.
Lap 27: “He just cut you up,” Ferrari tell a miffed Raikkonen, but the stewards don’t agree and report that no action will be taken. “Box, box, box,” Rosberg is told, and the race leader comes in.
Yellow flags – Bottas hits Raikkonen!
Lap 24: Bottas attacks Raikkonen on the outside and grabs the inside line entering the next turn. Raikkonen isn’t yielding and his rear-right clatters into the Williams’ front-left. Bottas continues but Kimi’s Ferrari spoons up into the air and comes to a halt. Raikkonen’s race is done – and the stewards will investigate.
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Lap 22: The Red Bulls pit, and surely Mercedes are next.
Top 10 after 22 laps
Hamilton
Rosberg
Kvyat
Ricciardo
Verstappen
Raikkonen
Bottas
Massa
Hülkenberg
Sainz
Lap 20: The crowd hold their breath as their man Sergio Pérez exits the pits just in front of Carlos Sainz’s Toro Rosso. Sainz however has momentum on his side and is able to sidestep the Force India to hold P10. Meanwhile, Vettel reports a flat spot on his tyre, caused by that spin. Rosberg is still out in front, 2.8secs from Hamilton who has just put in a new fastest lap. Both Mercedes are still yet to pit.
Lap 18: Vettel swings out of Mansell Turn and pops open the rear wing (enacts DRS). He glides past the cumbersome McLaren and is up to P11 – and suddenly he spins! Out of nowhere he loses control on the way into the next corner and stops just before the barrier, which at least allows him to continue. The Ferrari driver is back down to P16 though, and lots of his good work has been undone.
Lap 16: Vettel is enjoying the challenge of attacking from the back after that early puncture. He has worked his way up to P12 and has Button in his sights.
LAP CHART: #Vettel with it all to do after his early puncture #MexicoGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/S98J4jCZmE
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 1, 2015
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Lap 14: Massa and his fresh tyres squeak past Nasr to pinch P10, who immediately pits to make the same change. “Some are look like they are two-stopping but we are going to stick to our plan,” Red Bull tell Ricciardo, still running fourth behind his team-mate and the two Mercedes.
Lap 12: Kimi Raikkonen, who started P19, is making quick progress through the pack of slower cars in front and is up to P8, Romain Grosjean his latest victim. “Struggling with the rears,” says Daniel Ricciardo to Red Bull. “I think I can hang on for a little bit though.” Up front, Hamilton remains around 1sec behind Rosberg and is waiting patiently to see when his team-mate will pit.
Lap 10: Bottas comes in for an early and slightly ragged pitstop and puts on the white-rimmed mediums for a longer stint. He returns in P16 with only the Marussias and Vettel behind him. Bottas’s Williams team-mate Felipe Massa comes in a moment later, and his stop is a smooth one.
Lap 8: A forlorn Fernando Alonso gives yet another post-retirement interview: “It’s a shame. Now I go to the airport and try to forget these two races as quick as I can.”
Lap 6: Replays of the start show just how stubborn Rosberg was heading into turn 1, holding the inside line for as long as he possibly could in order to cut off Hamilton’s attack. Rosberg responds to Hamilton’s fast lap with one of his own to open up the gap to greater than 1sec once more. Together they are moving away from the chasing Red Bulls.
Lap 4: Ferrari to Raikkonen: “Brakes are getting hot,” he is warned over team radio. Hamilton fires in the fastest lap of the race to move within 1sec of Rosberg – DRS enabled.
Lap 2: “Retire the car, retire the car.” Not Vettel but another former world champion, Fernando Alonso, whose team order him to pit and the McLaren driver’s race is over prematurely for the seventh time this season. Vettel comes in and changes his tyres and he’s back out, albeit at the back of the pack. Rosberg leads by 1.3sec from Hamilton, ahead of Red Bull’s Kvyat and Ricciardo.
Lights out!
Rosberg gets away cleanly and Hamilton tucks in behind his team-mate on the long stretch to Turn 1. As they approach the Briton tries to pull wide and attack but Rosberg holds on and leads. Problems for Ferrari – Vettel has a puncture.
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Racing is almost under way in Mexican City. The talk of the paddock this weekend is brakes. The thinner air up high (Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is 1600m higher than the next loftiest circuit on the calendar, Interlagos) is the cause for concern, which will no doubt have a knock-on effects on tyre degradation. Pirelli predict a two-stop strategy over the 71 laps will be most effective, earmarking lap 23 as 46 the optimum moments to stop.
Next up, it’s lights out...
Grid
Kimi Raikkonen will have to do it the hard way today, starting on the back row after a gearbox penalty. Here is how they line-up:
1 Rosberg 2 Hamilton
3 Vettel 4 Kvyat
5 Ricciardo 6 Bottas
7 Massa 8 Verstappen
9 Pérez 10 Hülkenberg
11 Sainz 12 Grosjean
13 Maldonado 14 Ericsson
15 Nasr 16 Rossi
17 Stevens 18 Alonso
19 Raikkonen 20 Button
Mercedes’ Niki Lauda: “We let them [Rosberg and Hamilton] race the way they want.” Will Nico be more aggressive than normal? “Yes, 100%. After the first corner I can relax.”
The Mexican national anthem gets a hearty singalong from the crowd, a children’s choir, and Sergio Pérez. It is fair to say Formula One has returned to Mexico with full fanfare.
@LawrenceOstlere the anticipation is killing me - which mercedes will win ??
— Paul Smith (@paulsmudge88) November 1, 2015
This track is much changed since the day it last hosted an F1 race and gone with the sweeping changes is the old Peraltada corner, where Nigel Mansell provoked one of the brilliant Murray Walker’s highest notes:
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Nico Rosberg is on pole at the start of the first Mexican Grand Prix for 23 years, a position from which he began the last four races – Rosberg failed to top the podium after any of them. The run from the nose of his Mercedes to the start of turn 1 at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is a vast 900m stretch, so a sluggish start in Mexico City will be punished more harshly than most.
Preamble
After the rain dancing, the Red Bull bowling, the pit-lane bobsleighing, before Elton John, before hat-gate, before a future great won his third world title, there was a race. In some ways it is a shame that arguably the most entertaining grand prix of the season coincided with Lewis Hamilton’s championship winning moment and everything else that swirled and blew around it, because the effects of the Texas wind and rain created as good a race as any for those whose job it is to blow F1’s trumpet loudly and proudly in the direction of its detractors.
Rowing, dancing, bowling and even a spot of fancy dress - whatever floats your boat #Quali #USGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/mj3i0DySdg
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 24, 2015
A severe lack of practice time coupled with changing track conditions left teams in a mad guessing game, their drivers stripped of any race strategy that retained its relevance five laps later – and 20 cars were stripped of grip, too. These factors, combined with a lack of any great championship jeopardy, left drivers alone to apply all their racing instincts to marry the unwilling couple of car and track.
And how they raced. If ever a doubter need confirmation that these are some of the most skilful racing drivers on the planet, or that the art of overtaking is truly alive and kicking, this was it. Over 40 laps (the other 16 consumed by the safety car) there were 58 overtakes. Wheel-to-wheel, one car sliding wide and losing ground but refusing to relent and swinging behind the other, flashing up in one wing mirror and then the next before launching a counterattack at the track’s next twist. Hunter becoming prey becoming hunter over and over again.
It was enough to leave heads spinning simply trying to calculate who was where, when. Hamilton bumped Nico Rosberg at turn 1 before Daniel Ricciardo attacked to lead. Then, in a rare moment of synchronised Mercedes unity, both Silver Arrows slipped passed a Red Bull at once. This was Mercedes’ day, this was Hamilton’s day, until a prancing horse galloped in from nowhere (13th on the grid, to be precise). Vettel ducked and weaved and suddenly he led, until his tyres failed. Later Rosberg took up the mantle before he too let it slip with an “unexplainable” mistake, he said, to hand over the final piece of Hamilton’s championship puzzle. Behind all this Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Nico Hülkenberg, Sergio Pérez, Daniil Kvyat and Max Verstappen bartered and traded and stole positions and points from each other, at 200mph in the wind and rain, mostly for the sheer fun of it.
The last few laps, perhaps the laps that the casual fan tuned into watch after a glance at Twitter or a lap-by-lap report, showed the calm after the storm, Hamilton’s cruise to victory, another dull climax in an otherwise largely predictable season. But before that there was a race, a brilliant grand prix that evinced everything there is to enjoy about Formula One. More hat-throwing is welcome, as is the pit-lane fun and games and the awkward celebrity podium confrontations. But most of all, we ask for more racing please Mexico. Much more of the same.
Lights out: 7pm GMT
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Lawrence will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Paul Weaver’s report on how Nico Rosberg qualified on pole:
Mercedes claim that anger inspired Nico Rosberg to his fourth consecutive pole win over team-mate Lewis Hamilton for Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix.
Rosberg cut a frustrated figure when he was beaten to the Formula One world championship by Hamilton in Austin last weekend, when he felt the British driver had been too aggressive on the first corner.
When Mercedes motorsport chief Toto Wolff was asked to explain Rosberg’s qualifying pace here he replied: “Anger.” But this was denied by Rosberg, who is now the only driver to have won 20 poles without a world title to his name.
He said: “No, definitely not. No difference, just attack like always. I’m not angry, that wouldn’t be the approach. I just get my head down and keep going. Three more races to go, business as usual. Full attack, as always. I have felt good all weekend We have found a great balance in the car.”
Hamilton won 11 of the first 12 poles of the season but has not come top since the Italian Grand Prix almost two months ago. But he looked unworried when he said: “There were a couple of moments when the car felt spectacular, but there are a few places I could improve. I am quite happy with my spot and the races have always proven to be quite good ones for me, so I am excited for tomorrow.”
Rosberg had beaten Hamilton by just 0.014s in the final practice session three hours earlier, when there were more signs of tension between the two drivers.
Hamilton complained on the radio that Rosberg was “backing me up” but was told by his engineer that there was plenty of space. Hamilton will be second on the grid, Mercedes’ 13th front row lock-out of the season, and they will be followed by Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari and the Red Bull pair of Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo.
There was a good battle between the Mercedes men but Rosberg always had the edge in the final session and the two shook hands at the end. Hamilton was out first but locked up and allowed the German to take the advantage. Hamilton improved next time round, but so did Rosberg, who won the contest by 0.188s.
Meanwhile it was yet another awful day for McLaren. Fernando Alonso failed to make it to Q2 and Jenson Button didn’t even take part in qualifying after complaining about engine vibrations at low revs. The Briton said: “It’s been a very limited running weekend. We can’t complain. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.”
The weekend represents Formula One’s return to Mexico City for the first time in 23 years and even before the race the action has been compelling enough to make people wonder why it left in the first place. F1 has had two previous spells here, the first running from 1963-70 and the second from 1986-92. Motor racing first became popular in Mexico in the 1960s because the president, Adolfo López Mateos, was a big fan of the sport.
There has been plenty of British success here. Jim Clark won in 1963 and 1967 before Graham Hill’s victory in 1968. And John Surtees won the 1964 championship by finishing second here that year. When the sport returned Nigel Mansell was twice a winner, in 1987 and again in 1992, his championship year, and the last time the race was run.
Mansell is also fondly remembered in these parts for his daring 1990 overtake of Austria’s Gerhard Berger on the outside of the Peraltada corner, now sadly no more. This year F1 fans have had the first chance to welcome Hamilton as thenewly crowned world champion. And Saturday’s packed and well-positioned stands erupted with excitement as local hero Sergio Pérez battled his way into the top-10 shootout. Friday’s two practice sessions had also provided plenty of excitement, with a number of spin-offs as drivers struggled to come to terms with a combination of dampness caused by overnight rain and the freshly laid asphalt. Conditions were described by Vettel as “ridiculously slippery”.
It all added to excitement, and on Friday night another Mexican, Esteban Gutiérrez, the former Sauber driver, had his seat confirmed in the new Haas team. The 24-year-old will race alongside Romain Grosjean next year.
Mexico was priced out of Formula One, like so many former favourites on the calendar. In this sport it is difficult to get away from money and sadly the future of the Manor team – if there is one – has been a major talking point in the paddock this weekend.
On Saturday morning it was confirmed that technical consultant Bob Bell had resigned, following the news that team principal John Booth and sporting director Graeme Lowdon had quit on Friday following a difference of opinion with the team’s owner, Stephen Fitzpatrick.
A long list of other names are ready to leave and the future of the smallest but most popular team in the paddock must be in considerable doubt.
