2016 Mexican Grand Prix

Lore & Background

Defending race winner Nico Rosberg entered the round with a twenty-six-point lead over teammate Lewis Hamilton in the World Drivers' Championship; they were the only two drivers who could win the title at the start of the race, and both remained in contention after it. Their team, Mercedes, held a lead of two hundred and thirty-six points over Red Bull Racing in the World Constructors' Championship before the race; Red Bull were fifty-three points ahead of Scuderia Ferrari.

In Their Own Story

The air in Mexico City is thin, and the engines scream louder than anywhere else on the calendar. In the paddock of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, the yellow and blue R.S.16s sat quietly before the chaos began. For Nico Hülkenberg, it was another day of managing tire degradation while watching the Mercedes cars pull away like rockets. The noise of the V6 turbo was a constant reminder of the gap to close.

Reader's Guide

Lewis Hamilton won the race to narrow the Championship gap between him and teammate Nico Rosberg surviving a scare at the start when he ran wide at the first corner, before there was a brief Safety Car period after Pascal Wehrlein was punted off at the same corner. Both Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel were stripped of third place podium finishes when penalised post-race. Verstappen crossed the finish line in third, followed 0.99 seconds later by Vettel, himself followed 3.55 seconds later by Verstappen's teammate Daniel Ricciardo. Before the trophy presentation, Verstappen was penalised five seconds for cutting a race corner and unfairly maintaining his narrow lead over Vettel on lap 68. While Vettel attended the podium ceremony as the revised third-place finisher, he was soon given a ten-second penalty for driving dangerously on lap 69, for moving under braking to block Ricciardo as he attempted a pass, under new rules introduced at the United States Grand Prix the previous week. This meant that Ricciardo was promoted to third which also sealed third place in the championship for him, while Verstappen was relegated from third to fourth and Vettel was moved from fourth to third to fifth once the stewards had reviewed all incidents.

Did You Know?

• The source does not mention any historic milestone for Hamilton's victory.
• The source does not specify the number of Hamilton's career wins.
• The source does not state that Hamilton celebrated his 50th victory.