Nico Rosberg comfortably won the Brazilian Grand Prix and ensured that he will finish Runner-Up to teammate Lewis Hamilton in the Formula One World Championship.
The German headed home a Mercedes one-two to claim his 13th victory after claiming Pole in Saturday Qualifyiing. with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, taking his 13th podium of 2015, finishing third.
Behind the podium finishers Kimi Raikkonen, attempting a two-stopper, claimed fourth whilst fellow Finn Valtteri Bottas helped Williams to a second successive third place finish in the Constructors Championship. By finishing sixth, Nico Hulkenberg helped Force India to fufill a long-term ambition of fifth in the Championship. Danill Kvyat, Felipe Massa, Romain Grosjean and the impressive Max Verstappen rounded out the points.
Rosberg's Mind Games
After squeezing Hamilton out in a role reserval of Austin, Rosberg held a comfortable lead over the chasing pack, until Hamilton began to close the gap to a matter of a few car lengths. Through the first four turns it was evident Rosberg was being very cautious, with Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle speculating "he must have some sort of brake-by-wire issue". However after the race it was clarifed that the lack of pace was due to "looking after the tyres."
In what turned out to be a three stop race, most of the action was provided from the mid-field runners of Grosjean and Verstappen, with the duo providing some excellent overtaking moves to liven up what was otherwise not the most inspiring Grand Prix. Hamilton even claimed that "overtaking is impossible."
Evantually the gap was pulled out to 7.7 seconds at the flag, with the SIlver Arrows victorious for the 44th time. There has been a lot of talk of Hamilton easing off since claiming the title in Austin.
Verstappen pulled off the move of the day on Sergio Perez, to cement his reputation as a future World Champion. The 18 year-old scored points for the sixth consecutive race, whereas teammate Carlos Sainz suffered yet more bad luck, with a Power Unit issue on the way to the grid and retired after just 4 corners.
After taking the upgraded Renault power unit Daniel Ricciardo didn't make the progress expected and came home out the points, whereas Kvyat and the old-spec unit, not only out-qualified the Austrailian but out-raced him, to claim seventh and extend his lead to ten points in the Red Bull intra team battle.
Felipe Massa's was disqualified from the classification after a tyre pressure infrigment, he lost his eighth place and the four points which accompanied it.
Grosjean, after a difficult weekend for France after the terror attacks in Paris, was involved in many-a battle and evantually scored points in his penaultimate race for the Enstone team, before his departure to Haas for 2016. Pastor Maldonado picked up yet another penalty for spinning Marcus Ericsson at T1.
During Qualifying McLaren and Fernando Alonso suffered yet more reliability problems, culminating the sight of the Spainard sunbathing in by the side of the track whilst the session was ongoing. Starting last, both he and Jenson Button managed to see the chequered flag, albeit in P15 and P16. It is estimated that Honda need to find around two-and-a-half seconds over the winter to be on terms with the Mercedes.
Conclusions from Brazil
There has been a lot of talk of Hamilton easing off since clinching the title in Austin and Rosberg with the pressure now off, at ease. Both parties reject this claim. However seeing as Rosberg has outpaced Hamilton since Austin, in both Mexico and Brazil and the Brit has seemingly had no answer to the pace of the German, a third victory and sixth pole in a row in Abu Dhabi would certainly give him something to think about heading into the pair's fourth season as teammates.
The Formula One season draws to a close in two weeks time in Abu Dhabi with many battles still to be decided including the fight for fourth in the Championship between Raikkonen and Bottas as well as the Red Bull battle. It promises to a closely fought race.