Rosberg wins Mexican race, Bottas takes brilliant podium

Star of the race

Valtteri Bottas took the final podium place for Williams at the Mexican Grand Prix with a fine drive from 6th on the grid. He made a good start to be battling with the Red Bulls immediately and put a simple but effective DRS assisted move on Daniil Kvyat to move into third place.

What was most impressive was his move on Kimi Raikkonen. I've often thought that Bottas backs out far too often when fighting wheel to wheel but on this occasion he kept his foot in against Kimi. The Ferrari was on worn tyres and having to defend after starting on the medium compound after a poor qualifying and a penalty. 

The Williams had just pitted and was soon chasing down Kimi. He made a move into turn 4, hanging around the outside, Kimi turned in on Bottas leaving the Ferrari out of the race with damaged rear suspension, but luckily for Bottas he survived to score his first podium since the Canadian race in June.

The Winner

Lewis Hamilton may have just been crowned world champion for a third time but it was his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg who drove a brilliant race to remind Lewis and the team he s still a force to be reckoned with... Occasionally.

Rosberg was pretty much flawless all weekend taking his fourth pole position in succession then making a perfect start and leading start to finish not counting the pit stops. Every time Hamilton made a charge, Rosberg was able to counter it with another fastest lap. There were no mistakes and he drove to the chequered flag to take probably his best win of the year.

After Hamilton's decimation of Rosberg this year, it shows Nico's character that he can still bring out a great performance when perhaps he'd just want this season to be done with. If only he could've driven like this every weekend then the title chase might have been a bit closer.

Lewis seemed a bit annoyed when Mercedes chose to pit Rosberg as a precaution and them himself. He stayed out for an extra two laps as he debated with the team why he needed to pit, he felt he could make the tyres last to the end but the team overruled him with a few terse radio messages and eventually Hamilton pitted to fall behind Rosberg once again and take the runner up spot.

Vettel had a terrible race as he suffered with what seemed like braking issues, spinning off once before later crashing and bringing out the safety car. With both Ferrari's out it was their worst race of the year by far. 

Both Red Bull's were fairly competitive in the thinner air pressure of Mexico City as it stands well above sea level. Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo finished fourth and fifth with the other Williams of Felipe Massa finishing sixth.

The Force India's were strong once again, with Nico Hulkenberg getting the better strategy to beat home hero Sergio Perez, seventh and eighth respectively. Max Verstappen and Romain Grosjean completed the top ten. McLaren were out of their depth in Mexico, Fernando Alonso retiring after just one lap. 

The battles


Lots of battles down the field, although the one everyone wanted was the Mercedes cars going wheel to wheel. They remained close all race but there was to be no scrapping. The Williams and Red Bull's provided plenty of close racing as did the Toro Rosso's and Force India's with Carlos Sainz particularly displaying some wild driving.

Kimi was charging well before his accident and Vettel seemed to be involved in incident and action throughout his shortened race.

Things of note
The first Mexican Grand Prix since 1992 was packed to capacity, the appetite for Formula 1 was huge in the central American country. It just goes to show that you don't always need to end up in countries where they have no motor sport tradition but their government has a blank cheque to build a track which ends up being a soulless empty shell that swiftly gets abandoned.

Red Bull and Honda are apparently in talks to finally get some engines for 2016. This story looks like it will run for a while but McLaren certainly don't want it to happen if Honda come good next season after the hell they've been through this year.

all photos taken from autosport.com