Nico Rosberg and Valtteri Bottas Score Much-Needed Results at Mexican Grand Prix
On Sunday, Formula One returned to Mexico City for the first time in 23 years. The race, on a revamped Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, produced a familiar result—a Mercedes victory—but it was not Lewis Hamilton who took the win.
Instead, after Hamilton clinched his third world championship last weekend in Texas, his team-mate, Nico Rosberg, won from pole in Mexico. And although Rosberg's first victory in more than four months was one race too late to stave off Hamilton's title celebrations, it came not a moment too soon for the German.
With Hamilton's back-to-back titles, Rosberg has become the de facto No. 2 driver at Mercedes, even if the team would never say as much. Now, he needs to start rebuilding his confidence for a renewed challenge next season, and the victory in Mexico is a good start.
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Another man long overdue for a headline-grabbing, confidence-boosting result was Williams' Valtteri Bottas. In the first 15 races last year, the Finn tallied five podiums and 145 points en route to a fourth-place finish in the drivers' championship. It seemed only a matter of time until his first F1 victory, but we are still waiting.
After the same number of races in 2015, heading into Mexico, Bottas had 111 points, one podium (third in Canada) and sat fifth in the points table.
Bottas qualified just sixth on the grid for Sunday's race, surprisingly behind both Red Bulls, but he turned a very early and very late pit-stop strategy into a strong third-place finish behind the two Silver Arrows.
At the front, Rosberg was never really challenged by Hamilton, who shot down any speculation that perhaps he wasn't as motivated after clinching the title, saying, per a team press release:
"I was pushing so hard, giving absolutely everything that I had, and I think I had more pace than Nico. But, unfortunately, you can't really follow another car here. The closer and closer you get it's like two negative poles of a pair of magnets repelling each other, so there was nothing I could do. I knew I needed a good start to get the run on Nico into Turn One. But I had hardly any tow and, from there, he made no mistakes.
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Of course, had the championship been on the line, you might have expected Hamilton to take a chance or two, but that was unnecessary on Sunday.
Rosberg's pole was his fourth in a row, but after losing out to Hamilton at the first corner in Japan and the United States, he was determined to stay ahead in Mexico.
Asked about his start in the post-race press conference, he said: "I’ve been working on it to try and get everything perfect and today it worked out to be first and that was important, maybe the most important part of the race, so I’m very happy about that."
For most of the race, Rosberg stayed a few seconds ahead of his team-mate, but after a late safety car, Hamilton pushed to close the gap. Every time he posted a new fastest lap, though, Rosberg responded, keeping the Brit just far enough back that he could not use his drag reduction system (DRS).
After the race, Rosberg looked satisfied and maybe slightly relieved to finally finish back in front of Hamilton.
Bottas, meanwhile, had a more eventful race, fighting his way back up the field after his early pit stop on Lap 8.
On Lap 23, he collided with his countryman, Kimi Raikkonen, for the second time in three races. In Sochi, Raikkonen took Bottas out with a clumsy attempted pass on the last lap, as it looked like the Williams driver was headed for the podium.
This time, Bottas positioned himself alongside Raikkonen on the outside of Turn 4, leaving him on the inside for next corner, which follows immediately. Raikkonen was perhaps half-a-length ahead of Bottas, but he did not leave space for the Williams as they approached the apex of Turn 5.
Raikkonen's right-rear wheel ran over Bottas' front-left, breaking the Ferrari's suspension. And as the elder Finn pulled to the side of the track and began a long walk back to the pits, Bottas disappeared into the distance, his car apparently undamaged.
Raikkonen had been penalised for the collision in Sochi, but (correctly) neither driver was punished for the incident on Sunday.
"We were racing hard, obviously, and normally, what I’m used to in those kind of situations, there is enough for two cars when you go into a chicane like that but this time there wasn’t," Bottas explained in the post-race press conference. "And of course I’m not going to back off, I’m fighting for the positions. I was calculating the risk, I think there was a decent possibility to get through. But, hey, it ended up like this."
A frustrated Raikkonen suggested that the accident might have been Bottas' fault, saying in a team press release: "It’s racing in the end, but I think I was expecting that it probably might happen after Russia. Has he done it on purpose? I don’t know, you can decide yourselves, it doesn’t change the final outcome right now and it’s not going to change anything for me for the future."
However, Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene said, "Today, we are not blaming anybody," in his own team statement. He also called the race, "a lesson of humility that we must put to good use."
Bottas continued to climb through the field and found himself in fourth place at the safety-car restart, behind Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat. As the green flag waved, Bottas swept past the young Russian on the main straight (no DRS needed). From there, he cruised to the podium—15 seconds behind Hamilton and two seconds ahead of Kvyat.
"It feels so good, after so much bad luck recently and so much hard work, to get the reward," Bottas said after the race, per a team press release. "It was a great feeling on the podium, that was very special."
Both Rosberg and Bottas will be feeling confident as the F1 circus heads to Brazil for the penultimate race of the season in two weeks.
Rosberg won last year's Brazilian Grand Prix—his only victory in the second half of the season—but Bottas was a disappointing 10th after a long pit stop when he needed his seatbelt tightened.
For Rosberg, his Mexican win will remind him what he is capable of when he can get ahead of Hamilton during a race. Now the question is whether he can carry that momentum through the last two races and, more importantly, into next season.
Although Ferrari are getting closer, Hamilton and Rosberg will certainly be heavy favourites to battle for the title again next year. If Rosberg hopes to dethrone his team-mate, he will need many more days like Sunday in Mexico City.
Bottas will be back at Williams next year, but will the team be able to produce a car to match the Finn's seemingly limitless potential? With a much smaller budget than their nearest competitors—Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull—it will be difficult, but not impossible. Williams have nearly clinched another third-place finish in the constructors' championship, but the team (and Bottas) aspire to more.
For now, Rosberg and Bottas can bask in their champagne-soaked glory, content with at least this one result, even if the 2015 season has not worked out as they hoped.
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