Following on from the United States Grand Prix it is swiftly onto Mexico for the next round of the 2016 Formula 1 season which takes place this weekend.
Title Fight
With three rounds remaining and Lewis Hamilton’s victory in Austin on Sunday the gap between current championship leader Nico Rosberg and Hamilton is now 26 points.
Rosberg still has the “insurance” of a points gap of more than 25 points (a win) over his teammate, Hamilton.
Rosberg is still in a good position where he can follow Hamilton home at the remaining rounds and still clinch the title. But it’s easy saying, quite another to actually pull it off as we saw with the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo getting between the two Mercedes’ in Austin.
Battle for Fourth
Daniel Ricciardo is currently out on his own in third with a 50 point advantage over the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel in fourth.
However the fight for fourth is a lot closer with Vettel, his teammate Kimi Raikkonen and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen separated by 12 points.
Italy and Singapore saw Kimi Raikkonen be the highest finisher out of the three, it was then the turn of Max Verstappen in the following two races in Malaysia and Japan and now it could be Sebastian Vettel’s turn after he finished fourth in Austin whilst Raikkonen and Verstappen failed to finish. Will the trend continue and see Vettel finish ahead of Raikkonen and Verstappen?
Perez and Bottas
Going into the United States Grand Prix it was Valtteri Bottas who was ahead of Sergio Perez in the standings by a point. Now Perez finds himself 3 points ahead of Bottas going into his home Grand Prix after the Force India of Perez finished eighth whilst Bottas finished a lowly sixteenth.
Battle for Ninth
The battle for ninth in the standings saw a big development in Austin with Nico Hulkenberg not finishing and Fernando Alonso finishing fifth in Austin, now means that the gap between Hulkenberg, Alonso and the Williams of Felipe Massa is 5 points.
There are only 2 points separating Hulkenberg and Alonso in the standings going into Mexico.
Twelfth to Fifteenth
There was also a lot of movement with the drivers occupying twelfth to fifteenth in the standings with Carlos Sainz (twelfth), Romain Grosjean (thirteenth) and Jenson Button (fifteenth) all scoring points in Austin.
The gap between Sainz and Grosjean is 9 points. However it is the Scuderia Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat that follows on 25 points and then Button on 21 points.
Other point scorers
The remaining point scorers of 2016 are the Renault’s of Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer as well as the Manor of Pascal Wehrlein and the McLaren of Stoffel Vandoorne.
Magnussen is still on 7 points whilst the remaining three are all on 1 point.
The Motorsport Critic 