Mexican Grand Prix driver ratings

6 NICO ROSBERG
Mercedes F1 W06

Start: 1st
Finish: 1st
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/medium)

Rating: 10

This was the sort of weekend Rosberg needs to enjoy more often. He produced a superb lap to beat Hamilton to pole (for the fourth race in a row), and converted that into his fourth victory of the season with an assured performance in the race.

Rosberg finally got another win © XPB

He nailed the start, which was crucial, but also showed the pace and composure needed to keep Hamilton at bay. It was arguably his most convincing drive of 2015 so far.

44 LEWIS HAMILTON
Mercedes F1 W06

Start: 2nd
Finish: 2nd
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/medium)

Rating: 7

Hamilton says race wins and championships are what really count, so he is not bothered by his current five-race pole drought, but defeat to Rosberg on Saturday was a crucial factor in his failure to add to his tally of 43 grand prix victories.

The champion said he was pushing hard in the race, so he doesn't seem to be giving Rosberg an easy ride now the title battle is over, but just didn't manage to nail it at the crucial moments this time.

3 DANIEL RICCIARDO
Red Bull-Renault RB11

Start: 5th
Finish: 5th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 7

Ricciardo was disappointed at the size of the gap to Mercedes in qualifying, admitting "confusion" over how to extract the best from the tyres, but the gap to team-mate Kvyat was negligible at 0.001s.

Red Bull looked good on Friday but couldn't challenge Mercedes © XPB

After bouncing off Vettel's Ferrari at Turn 1 Ricciardo drove a solid race, but couldn't match Kvyat's pace on the soft tyre, complaining of a lack of rear grip. He did a good job to close down and pass Massa's Williams for fifth at least.

26 DANIIL KVYAT
Red Bull-Renault RB11

Start: 4th
Finish: 4th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 9

Kvyat was excellent this weekend. He edged team-mate Ricciardo out in qualifying, but his race performance was more impressive. The Russian passed Vettel's Ferrari off the line and showed superior pace to Ricciardo over the first stint on soft tyres.

He was looking good for a podium until the safety car came out and helped the Williams of Bottas to mug him at the restart. It was not quite the ultimate result, but a fine drive.

19 FELIPE MASSA
Williams-Mercedes FW37

Start: 7th
Finish: 6th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/medium)

Rating: 6

Massa wasn't too far behind team-mate Bottas in qualifying (0.119s), but was unhappy with his qualifying, struggling particularly over the second part of the lap.

Bottas survived his brush with Raikkonen to take his second 2015 podium © LAT

He lost a bit of ground on lap one, when Vettel's slow Ferrari allowed Verstappen's Toro Rosso to steal past, but more crucial was the fact he struggled for rear grip towards the end of his second stint, which allowed Ricciardo to overtake. A decent result but not a great race.

77 VALTTERI BOTTAS
Williams-Mercedes FW37

Start: 6th
Finish: 3rd
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/medium)

Rating: 8

Could/should Williams have beaten (or at least split) the Red Bulls in qualifying? Bottas felt the conditions needed to be hotter to favour the FW37.

He got his wish on Sunday, when the track temperature was significantly higher. The car came alive on the medium rubber and Bottas drove a combative race, though he was fortunate to survive contact with Raikkonen, and to have a safety car restart to set up a pass on Kvyat.

5 SEBASTIAN VETTEL
Ferrari SF15-T

Start: 3rd
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (soft/medium/medium/retired)

Rating: 4

Tried "everything I could" to beat the Mercedes in qualifying, but third was the best he could hope for. He asked jokingly whether Hamilton and Rosberg would take each other off at Turn 1, but in fact it was Vettel who endured an incident, colliding with Ricciardo and puncturing a rear tyre.

Vettel's race started badly and got no better © LAT

He later got stuck behind Maldonado's Lotus, then spun and crashed at Turn 7. Vettel has generally been excellent this year, but this was comfortably his worst race of 2015.

7 KIMI RAIKKONEN
Ferrari SF15-T

Start: 19th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (medium/retired)

Rating: 6

Raikkonen's weekend unravelled when his car caught fire in final practice, which led to an engine and gearbox change (and ultimately brake problems too) for qualifying. He took a new engine for the race so started on the last row, but was making steady progress when he came to blows with Bottas again.

He has questioned consistency of driving standards rulings recently, so one wonders if he was trying to make a point by closing the door so forcibly...

14 FERNANDO ALONSO
McLaren-Honda MP4-30

Start: 18th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (medium/retired)

Rating: 7

Changing his engine and gearbox before the start of the weekend meant this was always going to be a tough event for Alonso and McLaren-Honda, on a track that brutally exposed its ERS weakness.

McLaren was left fighting with Manor © LAT

The double champion therefore reckoned there was "no point" pushing in qualifying, so squeaking ahead of a Sauber looked a good effort for someone who wasn't trying! His race was over after a handful of corners thanks to an MGU-H problem.

22 JENSON BUTTON
McLaren-Honda MP4-30

Start: 20th
Finish: 14th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/soft/soft)

Rating: 7

Button probably deserves 11 out of 10 just for perseverance! He endured a terrible build-up thanks to engine problems in practice, which meant losing valuable tracktime and sitting out qualifying when Honda couldn't fix a misfire.

Multiple engine changes meant a 70-place grid penalty and a back-of-the-grid start, but he stood no chance of making meaningful progress given the car's pace. Beating the Manors was his only reward after 71 laps of frustration.

11 SERGIO PEREZ
Force India-Mercedes VJM08

Start: 9th
Finish: 8th
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 7

The local hero edged out team-mate Hulkenberg in qualifying, in what is becoming a close battle between the two on Saturdays now, and reckoned Sunday would be "the biggest day of my career" as his country hosted its first grand prix since 1992.

Perez tried another tyre-preservation punt © XPB

Perez likes to attempt the 'impossible' one-stopper, and looked on course to jump Massa, team-mate Hulkenberg, and maybe Ricciardo too without the safety car intervention. Fortunately he still had enough tyre life to fend off Verstappen at the end.

27 NICO HULKENBERG
Force India-Mercedes VJM08

Start: 10th
Finish: 7th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/medium)

Rating: 7

Hulkenberg felt this weekend would be like "starting with a blank sheet of paper" thanks to aero updates on the VJM08. He didn't feel 100 per cent confident in qualifying, but felt the lap that put him 10th was "really good", just not quite good enough to beat his team-mate.

He made up for that with a solid drive in the race. Admitted he was a bit lucky with the safety car timing, but needed that after two tough races recently.

33 MAX VERSTAPPEN
Toro Rosso-Renault STR10

Start: 8th
Finish: 9th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 7

Verstappen felt his performance in qualifying was one of his best given the crash he suffered in practice two. Force India was also impressed that he managed to get his Toro Rosso ahead of both VJM08s on the grid.

Verstappen set the pace in one Friday session and crashed early in another © XPB

He made a strong start to split the two Williams drivers, and reckoned beating the Force Indias was possible without engine overheating that set in during the first stint. An off at Turn 12 that let Perez past didn't help either.

55 CARLOS SAINZ JR
Toro Rosso-Renault STR10

Start: 11th
Finish: 13th
Strategy: 3 stops (soft/medium/soft/soft)

Rating: 5

Sainz was disappointed to not make Q3, but was much happier with his car after struggling badly for rear grip on Friday. His race started decently enough, but he felt the need to save brakes and the engine from overheating spoiled both his planned two-stop strategy and his fight with Force India.

Locking up and going off in front of Perez also didn't help, and a later off dropped him behind Ericsson's Sauber too. A forgettable race.

8 ROMAIN GROSJEAN
Lotus-Mercedes E23

Start: 12th
Finish: 10th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 7

Grosjean felt this circuit exposed the low-speed weaknesses of the E23, so failing to make Q3 was no great surprise. Nevertheless he maintained his excellent qualifying record over his team-mate this year.

Maldonado ended up being the non-scoring Lotus © LAT

He lost out to Maldonado at the start, but jumped him again at the first round of pitstops. There was not much to choose between them overall, with Grosjean a bit quicker on the medium tyre and Maldonado fractionally better on the soft at the end.

13 PASTOR MALDONADO
Lotus-Mercedes E23

Start: 13th
Finish: 11th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 7

Maldonado found generating rear grip difficult here and ended up two tenths adrift of Grosjean in qualifying, which is probably about par for the course this season. He got ahead of his team-mate at the start, but lost several seconds waiting for traffic in the pitlane at his first stop, which reversed positions.

The team felt he would have been the point scorer without that delay, though that depends on whether his late 'off' at Turn 12 would have happened regardless...

28 WILL STEVENS
Marussia-Ferrari MR-03B

Start: 17th
Finish: 16th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 6

A mixed bag. Manor was impressed with his lapping a quarter of a second slower than team-mate Rossi in qualifying, given a software reset was required in Q1 when the car lost ERS deployment, costing Stevens a run.

The Manors swapped places during the race © XPB

He was much quicker than Rossi on the soft tyre early in the race, so was allowed past, but struggled on the medium, and wasn't too impressed to be told to let Rossi back through at the end.

53 ALEXANDER ROSSI
Marussia-Ferrari MR-03B

Start: 16th
Finish: 15th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 7

Rossi was delighted to even the score by outqualifying Stevens for the second time in the four races they've done together as Manor team-mates, but felt so bad about his woeful lack of pace at the start of the race that he was compelled to apologise to the team afterwards.

Conversely, his pace on the medium was superb compared to his team-mate's. A decent display in a strange race of opposites for the Manor cars.

9 MARCUS ERICSSON
Sauber-Ferrari C34

Start: 14th
Finish: 12th
Strategy: 3 stops (soft/medium/medium/soft)

Rating: 8

This was a good performance from Ericsson on a difficult weekend for Sauber. His lap to go 10th fastest in Q1 was supreme, but overheated his rear tyres pushing for more time in Q2 so ended up slower than he should have been.

Nasr's brakes eventually ended up just too hot © LAT

He reckoned his drive to 12th was his best of the season given he was managing overheating brakes from the early stages. It was a mature performance in trying circumstances.

12 FELIPE NASR
Sauber-Ferrari C34

Start: 15th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (soft/medium/medium/soft/retired)

Rating: 5

Brakes have been a big issue for Nasr at times this season and they were his undoing here as well. He suffered overheating problems in qualifying, despite running the same material and cooling package as his team-mate.

The Brazilian was saving brakes "from lap one" in the race, but try as he might couldn't keep the temperatures under control, and retired under the safety car when they finally caught fire. All in all a bad weekend.