Mexican Grand Prix 2015: Winners and Losers from Mexico City Race

Nico Rosberg claimed his fourth win of the 2015 Formula One season in Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix.

The Mercedes driver took his fourth pole position in succession at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and finally—after gifting the advantage to Lewis Hamilton, his Mercedes team-mate, in Japan, Russia and the United States—converted his starting position into victory.

Despite failing to win a race since June, Rosberg exuded control at the front of the field, as Mercedes' closest challengers, Ferrari, pressed the self-destruct button.

The retirements of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen ended a substandard weekend for the Prancing Horse and allowed Valtteri Bottas, the Williams driver, to reach the podium for only the second time this season.

With a look at another pitiful weekend for McLaren-Honda, Daniil Kvyat's resilience and Sergio Perez's homecoming, here are the winners and losers from Mexico.

Winner: Nico Rosberg

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Until the Mexican Grand Prix, Nico Rosberg's pole-to-win conversion rate had been borderline embarrassing.

The German had only maximised two of his last 10 pole positions, stretching back to mid-2014, and had failed to capitalise on pole in each of the last three races, with his rediscovered one-lap pace undermined by misfortune and mediocre racecraft.

Without a race victory since the Austrian GP, his inability to get ahead and stay there risked becoming a psychological barrier to success, yet here was a performance that would have made him wonder what all the fuss was about.

After a hurried formation lap at last weekend's United States GP—perhaps a consequence of Sebastian Vettel's complaints about the Mercedes drivers in Russia—Rosberg backed up the field as the cars approached the grid, ensuring he wouldn't be caught out on a day when temperature management, due to high altitude, would be essential.

His second strong start in the last three races—suggesting he is finally getting to grips with the revised race-start procedure—allowed him to guard against Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap and, from there, it was one of those typical, finely choreographed Nico Rosberg wins.

He was vigilant whenever he needed to be, quick when he required extra speed—most notably in the closing stages, when he responded to Hamilton's increased pace by producing a fast lap of his own—and orchestrated the safety-car restart to perfection to prevent his team-mate from even considering a pass.

His brief off-track excursion at the Esses showed he remains vulnerable under pressure, yet this—only his fourth win of 2015—was the most convincing, confident performance Rosberg has produced for some time.

The 25 points Rosberg scored, on a day Vettel scored none, has solidified second place in the drivers' standings, with the Mercedes driver now 21 points clear of the Ferrari, with just two rounds remaining.

Loser: Ferrari

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For all his consistency—15 top-five finishes, including 12 podium finishes, in 17 races in 2015—Sebastian Vettel can be susceptible to the occasional off-day.

The good news, at least, is that those days don't happen very often—April's Bahrain GP, where he still finished fifth, was the last time Vettel performed scruffily in racing conditions—but when they do occur, they tend to happen in grands prix where Ferrari fancy their chances of victory.

Despite qualifying 0.37 seconds adrift of Rosberg, per the official F1 website, the SF15-T's superior cooling may have allowed Vettel to threaten the Mercedes drivers in racing conditions.

But on a day he could have reinforced his status as Ferrari's new hero, Vettel was his own worst enemy, turning in on Daniel Ricciardo at Turn 1, suffering a puncture and instantly ending his hopes for a fourth win of the season.

Although, after pitting for new tyres, the four-time world champion soon made his way back up to 11th; a spin at the Esses dropped him down the order yet again before he crashed out at the same spot on Lap 52.

By that point, Kimi Raikkonen was reflecting on yet another missed opportunity after colliding with another car for the third consecutive race.

The Mexican GP, in many ways, encapsulated Raikkonen's second spell at Ferrari, with the 2007 world champion suffering bad luck (grid-place penalties) and showcasing a promising turn of speed (recovering from 19th to sixth) before throwing it all away by failing to leave Valtteri Bottas enough room at Turn 5.

According to the official F1 Twitter account, Ferrari's double-retirement is the first time both scarlet-red cars have failed to finish since the 2006 Australian GP, and Vettel and Raikkonen had nobody but themselves to blame.

"The car was good—just not the drivers," Vettel told the official F1 website.

Winner: Valtteri Bottas

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Ahead of the race weekend, Valtteri Bottas told Crash.net of his disappointment with his 2015 campaign, explaining how bad luck—pit-stop blunders, braking issues—had prevented him from building on his impressive 2014 season.

Yet the Finn benefited from two slices of good fortune to ultimately secure his second podium finish of the year at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

The first, of course, came after his collision with Raikkonen on Lap 22, when—despite a relatively heavy impact with the Ferrari's rear-right wheel—Bottas' Williams FW37 emerged unscathed and allowed him to return the favour after Kimi's last-lap assault in Russia.

The second, meanwhile, was when the safety car appeared for Vettel's crash on Lap 52, giving Bottas the encouragement to overtake Daniil Kvyat for third place at the restart after previously being unable to pass the Russian.

Among the biggest sticks Bottas has been beaten with throughout 2015 is the fact that, until now, his team-mate, Felipe Massa—a 34-year-old whose best days are well and truly behind him—had two podium finishes to his name, while the man regarded as a future world champion only had one, after a third-place finish in Canada.

With Massa experiencing an inconsistent end to the year, however, Bottas has once again established himself as Williams' most dependable, reliable performer.

And he's proved that, while 2015 has failed to meet his expectations, he can still salvage something from this season.

Loser: McLaren-Honda

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At a circuit where speed-trap figures were among the biggest talking points—per the official F1 Twitter account, Vettel was clocking 366.2 kilometres per hour at one point during the race—McLaren were always bound to struggle in Mexico.

As they come to the end of the first season of their renewed partnership with Honda, the team should at least have been able to make up for their lack of power with solid reliability.

But despite both Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button reaching the chequered flag in six of the last eight races, McLaren's woes reappeared at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

After being ruled out of qualifying "due to a signal system failure that led to a misfire during final practice," as reported by Autosport's Ian Parkes, Button was given a 70-place grid penalty—a remarkable feat when you consider there are only 20 cars in F1—for several power-unit component changes.

And while Button did manage to finish the race—albeit in 14th, ending his run of two consecutive points finishes—Alonso was eliminated on the opening lap.

As the two-time world champion told McLaren's official website, the team identified "an MGU-H rotation speed problem" on Saturday night, but by the time the issue was confirmed, they didn't have enough time to resolve it.

That they chose to race, despite the knowledge that the issue would prove to be problematic from the start, only confirmed that McLaren now operate with hope rather than serious expectation.

Winner: Daniil Kvyat

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As noted after the United States GP, Daniil Kvyat's untidy performance at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), which ended with a sizable yet avoidable crash, confirmed his status as the weakest link in a Red Bull stable housing the likes of Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Max Verstappen.

His elementary error—squeezing the throttle pedal while running on the damp, artificial grass and spinning across the track—meant the 21-year-old was under a certain degree of pressure in Mexico. 

Kvyat, however, rarely appears to be aware of any pressure and performed in that steely, businesslike, Red Bull-esque way of his throughout the weekend.

After qualifying ahead of Daniel Ricciardo—albeit by just 0.001 seconds, per the official F1 website—Kvyat moved up from fourth to third at the first corner.

That, in all likelihood, would be where he would have finished had it not been for the late safety car, which left his Renault-powered RB11 exposed against the Williams-Mercedes of Bottas, who simply cruised past at the restart.

Rather than allowing his head to drop, however—as was the case at COTA, where he became increasingly error-prone as he fell through the field—Kvyat remained calm, shadowing the Williams and finishing fourth, just two seconds behind the Finn.

His fifth top-five finish of the season came at a time he needed it most.

Winner: Force India

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In a sport as elitist as Formula One, hero status is usually reserved for big-name attractions and multiple world champions such as Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.

It was with much interest, therefore, that you wondered how a 25-year-old, representing a modest team and with only limited success during his five-year F1 career, would react to the welcome he received in his first grand prix appearance on home soil.

Would Sergio Perez—now Force India's No. 1 driver, having claimed several surprise results in recent months—absorb the adoration of his fellow Mexicans to produce another assured performance? 

Or would the man affectionately known as "Checo," prone to silly mistakes in years gone by, try too hard to impress and succumb to the pressure generated by the home crowd? 

The Mexican GP offered a test of how much, and how quickly, Perez has matured and he responded with what he told Force India's official website was "probably one of my best performances in Formula One," utilising a one-stop strategy and withstanding pressure from faster cars behind to finish eighth.

Despite his delight with his own result, Perez was beaten by his team-mate for only the second time in the last nine races as Nico Hulkenberg returned to the points for the first time since the Japanese GP, driving cleanly following his recent collisions in Singapore, Russia and the United States.

Now 41 points ahead of Lotus with two rounds left, Force India effectively secured fifth place, their best-ever finish in the constructors' championship, in Mexico.

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