Mexican Grand Prix driver ratings

6 NICO ROSBERG
Mercedes F1 W07

Start: 2nd
Finish: 2nd
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 7

This was a curate's egg of a weekend for Rosberg. He never looked as comfortable as his team-mate and it wasn't until the second run in Q3 that he started to string things together.

Never in Hamilton's league in the race, steering damage notwithstanding, he nonetheless continued to dodge bullets that might have denied him second place and deserves credit for standing firm under pressure.

44 LEWIS HAMILTON
Mercedes F1 W07

Start: 1st
Finish: 1st
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 9

From the start of Friday practice, Hamilton looked to have everything completely under control and it says a lot that it took a mighty effort from Rosberg to get to within 0.254s of him in qualifying.

He controlled the race beautifully, but the mistake on the brakes into the first corner does mean Hamilton does not merit the perfect 10 for an otherwise stellar weekend.

5 SEBASTIAN VETTEL
Ferrari SF16-H

Start: 7th
Finish: 5th
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 7

Vettel struggled to get the tyres working in qualifying, like Raikkonen, and ended up just behind his team-mate.

He can be excused for losing crucial time stuck behind Massa before the Williams pitted, given its straightline speed, but after that drove a good attacking race. Though his frustration with Verstappen was understandable, his defensive move against Ricciardo was foolish given the recent edict.

7 KIMI RAIKKONEN
Ferrari SF16-H

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

Rating: 8

Raikkonen outqualified Vettel by the narrowest of margins, and was running ahead of him in the race before making a second pitstop.

Given the wear rates of the tyres allowed marathon stints on the mediums for other cars, Ferrari would have been wise to leave him out so he didn't have to come back through past Hulkenberg. Overall, this was a decent weekend's work.

19 FELIPE MASSA
Williams-Mercedes FW38

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

Rating: 7

That Massa qualified and finished directly behind team-mate Bottas flattered him a little.

While it was a solid weekend and he did a good job lap after lap to keep the quicker Perez behind in the race, he was well off his team-mate. Massa was 0.481s down in qualifying and 10.5s behind in the race, although much of the Sunday gap was down to struggling to get the mediums to work early in his stint.

77 VALTTERI BOTTAS
Williams-Mercedes FW38

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

Rating: 9

Right from the off in free practice, Bottas looked to have the measure of the tricky grip levels available and comfortably had the edge over team-mate Massa.

A scruffy first lap including a brief off aside, he drove an excellent race, passing Massa after the pitstops and delivering a strong result. Given Hulkenberg's pace, he got the best result possible.

3 DANIEL RICCIARDO
Red Bull-Renault RB12

Start: 4th
Finish: 3rd
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 8

Ricciardo wasn't happy with his qualifying lap, which was scruffy even when you factor the tyres not being properly switched on.

His charge on softs late in the race allowed him to join the third-place battle, and while you can argue he was fortunate penalties for Verstappen and Vettel gave him a podium, Ricciardo's brilliant control when the Ferrari moved over on him deserved a reward.

33 MAX VERSTAPPEN
Red Bull-Renault RB12

Start: 3rd
Finish: 4th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/medium)

Rating: 7

As ever, this was a weekend in which Verstappen walked the tightrope between inspiration and self-destruction.

He just eclipsed Ricciardo in qualifying, then survived wheelbanging with Rosberg at the start, a big moment trying to pass the Mercedes later on, suffering minor wing damage on a kerb and then running off track while defending against Vettel. Perversely, not heeding advice to let Vettel past ultimately cost him a podium.

11 SERGIO PEREZ
Force India-Mercedes VJM09

Start: 12th
Finish: 10th
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 6

Perez's mistake into Turn 1 in Q2 proved costly. Had he not made that error, even though he wasn't quite on Hulkenberg's level he might well have been ahead of the two Williams drivers and not spent much of the race stuck behind Massa.

He did overcommit massively when he tried to pass the Williams, and then had to ease off to manage the brakes and tyres.

27 NICO HULKENBERG
Force India-Mercedes VJM09

Start: 5th
Finish: 7th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/medium)

Rating: 9

A mighty weekend from Hulkenberg, with the only blot on his copybook the spin while battling with Raikkonen. He can rightfully claim to have been on very old tyres, and argued the Finn turned across him, but even so to risk a strong finish was his one misjudgement of the weekend.

Beyond that, he was fast and the stronger Force India driver.

20 KEVIN MAGNUSSEN
Renault RS16

Start: 14th
Finish: 17th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/super-soft)

Rating: 6

Magnussen did turn in a good lap to make Q2, but the race was a long and fruitless one as he struggled with the tyres on all three compounds and was unable to make much progress.

He did at least hold off Kvyat by the narrowest of margins in a 'virtual' race to the chequered flag.

30 JOLYON PALMER
Renault RS16

Start: 21st
Finish: 14th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/medium)

Rating: 8

Monocoque damage was a cruel punishment for the smallest of errors in Saturday morning practice as Palmer dropped the left-side of his car over the exit kerb at the last corner.

Practice suggested he had the legs on Magnussen, and the race confirmed it as Palmer made good progress after a first-lap pitstop, showing resilience in battle against both McLaren drivers in a difficult-to-drive car.

26 DANIIL KVYAT
Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11

Start: 18th
Finish: 18th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 6

An electronics problem at the end of his first Q1 run condemned Kvyat to 18th on the grid, although his pace suggested he wouldn't quite have been able to achieve the heights Sainz did had he made Q2.

His race pace was good, but compromised by a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits that cost him two places, and prevented him finishing ahead of Sainz.

55 CARLOS SAINZ JR
Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11

Start: 10th
Finish: 16th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/medium)

Rating: 7

Sainz looked very at home on the low-grip circuit from the start of Friday practice, and was rewarded with a place in Q3 after a stellar Q2 lap.

The race quickly got away from him, and he was hit with a five-second penalty for a first lap incident where he forced Alonso onto the grass. Even so, he will be disappointed to have finished behind Nasr.

9 MARCUS ERICSSON
Sauber-Ferrari C35

Start: 15th
Finish: 11th
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 9

Ericsson described this grand prix as the best of his 54-race F1 career, and he's probably right.

A great effort in Q1, six tenths faster than Nasr, put him into Q2, and after losing a nose when he was collected by Wehrlein on the first lap a good result seemed impossible. But a marathon stint on mediums allowed him to finish a strong 11th.

12 FELIPE NASR
Sauber-Ferrari C35

Start: 19th
Finish: 15th
Strategy: 1 stop (medium/super-soft)

Rating: 5

This was another challenging weekend for Nasr, who struggled in qualifying but put in a tidy race performance after running very long on the medium-compound Pirellis he started on.

Ultimately, he didn't quite have the pace of Ericsson, although he did have some minor front wing damage in the race, so this was a solid, rather than spectacular, performance.

14 FERNANDO ALONSO
McLaren-Honda MP4-31

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

Rating: 8

You could argue Alonso deserves a maximum score just for his brilliant save when forced onto the grass by Sainz, which could easily have led to a big accident.

His qualifying performance was good, and the race was better than the result suggested given time lost to a stuck wheelnut and the need to turn the engine down in the closing stages to ensure it didn't fail.

22 JENSON BUTTON
McLaren-Honda MP4-31

Start: 13th
Finish: 12th
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 7

As has become the pattern for Button, he couldn't quite match Alonso in qualifying trim but executed a strong race, finishing ahead of his team-mate thanks to opting for the standard one-stop strategy.

Perhaps he should have finished ahead of Ericsson, although the strategic offset played a part in that. Given the pace of the car, it was a decent enough weekend's work.

31 ESTEBAN OCON
Manor-Mercedes MRT-05

Start: 20th
Finish: 21st
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 6

After progressing well in recent races, Ocon struggled with the balance of the car in Mexico and found it difficult to put together an error-free qualifying lap without going conservative. The upshot was a deficit of half a second to Wehrlein.

He struggled in the race, and the data did show a mysterious imbalance on turn-in that Ocon reckoned was to blame for his troubles.

94 PASCAL WEHRLEIN
Manor-Mercedes MRT-05

Start: 16th
Finish: DNF
Strategy: soft/retired

Rating: 8

A mighty effort on his third and final run in the first stage of qualifying got Wehrlein into Q2.

Given his pace, it would have been fascinating to see if he could have made good on his suggestion that he might have been able to finish as high as 11th had he not been pitched out of the race at the second corner in an incident not of his making.

8 ROMAIN GROSJEAN
Haas-Ferrari VF-16

Start: 22nd (pits)
Finish: 20th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 5

This was another one of those weekends where Grosjean was mainly furious at the problems of the car, with the brakes proving difficult on Saturday and a general handling imbalance baffling him.

A change of floor on Saturday night to an older specification didn't solve the problem so he had a trying race. It's difficult to judge how much of the problem was car, and how much driver.

21 ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ
Haas-Ferrari VF-16

Start: 17th
Finish: 19th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 6

Gutierrez had little chance to make an impression in what was the Haas team's worst weekend of the year.

There were a few messy moments, such as the spin in Q1 as he overdrove attempting to improve his time, and leaving himself between a Sauber and a Manor at Turn 2 on the opening lap, but these didn't prove in any way costly.