Nico and Lewis bring home a Brazilian Grand Prix double after intense battle at Interlagos
Nico claimed his second consecutive Brazilian Grand Prix victory - the 13th win and 40th podium finish of his Formula One career to date. Lewis pushed his team-mate hard throughout the race to eventually come home second - claiming the 2015 Fastest Lap Award 2015 in the process with his seventh fastest race lap of the season.
The Silver Arrows have now sealed 11 one-two finishes in 2015 - equalling the teams' 2014 benchmark with one race to spare. Nico today confirmed second position in the Drivers' Championship - holding a lead of 31 points over Sebastian Vettel with one race remaining.
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: A fantastic 1-2 finish for the team this afternoon and a great feeling to see Nico secure P2 in the Championship with this win. He put in a faultless performance this weekend with a strong pole position lap and then a beautiful drive today. For Lewis, running P2 was always going to be difficult at this track. As soon as you get close to the car in front, you lose downforce and the tyres start dropping off. When that happened in the second stint he asked about an alternative strategy. But the only option was to convert to three stops which was ten seconds slower in terms of overall race time and would have put his second place at risk to Vettel. Then, the situation changed in our favour when Vettel converted to a three-stop strategy, which allowed us to do the same and control any threat from behind to the end of the race. The boys were pushing flat out to the finish but Nico was able to manage the gap to the end to take a well-deserved win. We're looking forward to seeing this season's final installment of the battle between Lewis and Nico in two weeks' time in Abu Dhabi.
Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical): Congratulations to Nico who delivered a perfect weekend here in Brazil. He won the race through a great qualifying lap yesterday and consolidated that with a tremendously controlled drive today. Unfortunately for Lewis, he couldn't counter that and spent the afternoon chasing hard - unable to quite get close enough to try and overtake Nico on track. To us, it seemed a very exciting race as both drivers fought over fractions of a second lap after lap, putting each other under immense and sustained pressure. We originally planned to do a two-stop strategy but eventually converted to a three-stop strategy to shadow Sebastian in third place, even though the three-stopper was about 10 seconds slower overall. But with the relatively slender margin we had to the Ferrari, it was much safer to mimic his stops. There was a point in the second stint when Lewis asked if anything could be done about a different strategy, but the only alternative at that point was the slower three-stopper, with others looking like they were two-stopping, and we didn't want to risk handing second place to Ferrari. Our policy is to let our drivers race and also to allow them to explore viable alternative strategies, as we have shown in the past - but we don't let them pursue a bad alternative strategy at any cost. Needless to say, it's fantastic to take a 15th race win and 11th one-two finish of the season; and it was just as satisfying to see Jimmy on the podium for his 50th birthday. He's part of the fabric of our team and of the paddock as a whole, and it was nice to be able to recognise him with a visit to the rostrum.
Christian Horner, Team Principal: "We knew this was going to be a difficult track for us and we were proved right this afternoon, even though the team and the drivers did their utmost to bring home the best possible result. Overtaking is very difficult here and we couldn't match the pace of the quickest cars down the straight: we clearly weren't alone in this as only four cars finished on the lead lap. Dany finished where he qualified to bring home some valuable points. As for Daniel, who made up seven places from his grid position, we tried giving him a short final stint on the softer tyre to see if he could catch and pass some cars in the closing laps but today it didn't pay off."
Matthieu Dubois, Renault: "It has been a tough weekend for us and to be honest the Paris attacks have overshadowed anything that has happened here in Interlagos. We decided from the outset to take a heavy penalty to introduce a new engine specification and learn as much as we could. We know there is still work to extract the performance. The penalty resulted in Daniel finishing out of the points, but the result with Daniil could not have been a lot better. Nevertheless it is positive to see all the measures introduced are paying off in terms of reliability again, including the new engine. Above all we would like to reiterate our strongest thoughts to the victims of Friday and their families."
Valtteri Bottas finished fifth and Felipe Massa eighth in today's Brazilian Grand Prix.Valtteri made a brilliant start to regain two of the three places he lost to a grid penalty. He settled into P5 from the first lap and made a two-stop strategy work.
Felipe ran in the battle for P6 all day with Hulkenberg and Kvyat. He was unable to find a way past so gambled on a late pit stop for fresh tyres, but was unable to close the gap before the end.
Williams has sealed third place in the constructors' championship for the second successive season.
The race stewards excluded Felipe from the results after his right rear tyre was believed to be in excess of the 110-degree Celsius limit prior to the race. The team has served notice of an appeal.
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We have achieved our primary target for the season which was to retain third in the constructors', showing a marked improvement compared to where we were a few years ago. We've shown consistency in consolidating that position and the team has worked very well to achieve that. Today's race was not what we wanted, we just didn't have enough pace. Valtteri was able to get past Hulkenberg and Kvyat in the first stint and show the car's true pace, while Felipe was unfortunately caught behind them for most of the race and unable to do the same.
Maurizio Arrivabene: "Our pace today was good: on some laps we were close to the Mercedes, on some other stages we were matching their lap times and on some occasions we managed to be even quicker. Overall, though, they were quicker than us on more occasions. Looking at the data, we see that despite having no safety car period in this race, we were closer at the end than in most other races this year. And our cars were the only ones not to be lapped! With Seb, we switched from two to three pit stops, fitting Options on his second stint for purely strategic reasons, a three stopper would have allowed Seb to be more aggressive. He really pushed throughout the race. With Kimi, we stayed on the two stops to cover every possible situation, and this explains why he had more tire degradation than Seb. Much of the credit goes to our car and all the people who worked on it all year. Now we move on to Abu Dhabi and the last race of the season. We said we wanted to end up this year in style, and that means we'll be trying everything we can to achieve a brilliant result!"
Eric Boullier, Racing director: "For a team that has won the Brazilian Grand Prix no fewer than 12 times in the past - more than any other équipe - to finish 15th and 16th here today is of course far from agreeable.
"However, yet again, both Jenson and Fernando drove forcefully and skilfully, in trying conditions, their efforts compromised not least by the uphill gradient of the main straight, which was always going to be inimical to the optimisation of our car's specific performance envelope.
"Nonetheless, both their Honda power units ran like clockwork today, exhibiting faultless reliability throughout the afternoon, and that laudable achievement represents a sound and solid developmental platform on which we can build for the future."
Yasuhisa Arai, Honda R&D senior managing officer - chief officer of motorsport: "First, I would like to thank the McLaren-Honda mechanics and engineers, who, with the cooperation of the FIA, were able to prepare Fernando's car for the race today.
"The race itself was less eventful than the practice sessions had been. Most of the cars finished where they'd started, which resulted in a P15 and a P16 for us.
"In order to fight with the midfield runners, we need to utilise the full three days of the race weekend, to set up both the
car and the power unit; but, for the Brazilian Grand Prix, we lost much of this precious time.
"The last race in 2015 will be in Abu Dhabi, where McLaren-Honda united as a team one year ago. It will be important for us to show our progression and perform to the maximum of our current abilities there."
Sahara Force India secured fifth place in the championship today as Nico Hulkenberg raced to sixth place in the Brazilian Grand Prix ahead of Sergio Perez in P13.
Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: "Everybody in the team is delighted that we have secured fifth place in the championship with a race to spare. It's the reward for all the hard work put in by everyone back at the factory in Silverstone, at the wind tunnel, and here at the track. We have been through a lot this year, but we never let our target out of our sight and today we can celebrate. The race itself leaves us with mixed feelings as we wanted to seal this result with a double points finish. Nico drove very well, making a two-stop strategy work and withstanding a lot of pressure in the closing stages when Kvyat was behind him. Unfortunately Checo missed out on the top ten despite fighting hard this afternoon, but he didn't feel completely comfortable with the car all weekend. We now head to Abu Dhabi to close off this record-breaking season on a high and secure top ten positions in the drivers' championship for both Nico and Checo."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "Starting from P9 and P10, I was expecting to score some more points than what we have today. Unfortunately, Carlos wasn't able to make it to the starting grid because of an issue on the drivetrain. We checked everything when he was brought back to the garage and he started the race from the pit-lane, but unfortunately after only a few hundred metres we recognised that the problem was not solved, the rear tyres locked-up and that was the end of his race. I'm really sorry for Carlos, because this is now his seventh retirement due to a technical failure, where the driver cannot do anything about it. As for Max, he had a good start to the race, even though he was then overtaken on the long straight by a few other competitors with more power and therefore quicker. He was able to establish himself in eleventh position and had some fantastic fights with Maldonado, Grosjean, Perez and Nasr, and I must say that once more, his manoeuvres were of an extraordinary quality - always overtaking in the corners, taking a lot of controlled risks, and not in the straights like the other cars. Max really drove an excellent race. The strategy from the team was good, we couldn't have done anything different. We simply have to accept that here in Sao Paulo we were just too slow to close the gap to Lotus. We have one more race in two weeks in Abu Dhabi, which is a completely different type of circuit, and I hope that we can fight and end up in sixth position in the Constructors' Championship."
Cedrik Staudohar (Renault Sport F1 track support leader): "Yet again Max put in a good race and scored a well-deserved point after a difficult weekend. Everything worked perfectly with his power unit and he was able to fight with the Force Indias and Lotus cars for position. It is obviously a shame that we lost Carlos' car so early in the race. The team looked at everything in a lot of detail after his electrical issue yesterday that affected the clutch control and the analysis suggested that everything on the engine side was OK to run. Unfortunately it seems that the engine was in the end affected by this issue, which resulted in a loss of power on the lap to the grid and then on lap one. We will check everything with the team and try to end the season on a high in Abu Dhabi. But more importantly we would all like to express our sincere sympathy for the victims of the Paris attacks on Friday night, their friends and families. We are all thinking deeply of our city at this very sad time."
Romain Grosjean finished P9 and Pastor Maldonado P11 after spirited runs up the order in the Brazilian Grand Prix. After a disappointing qualifying yesterday, today's 71 lap race saw both drivers making moves on their rivals whilst employing different tyre strategies. Pastor looked like scoring with P10 until late in the race and did receive a five second penalty, served at his final pit stop, for contact with another driver.
Romain started from P14 on the grid on new Pirelli soft compound tyres. He changed to new medium tyres on laps 10 and 35, then scrubbed softs on lap 54. Pastor started from P15 on new medium tyres, changing to new soft tyres on lap 25 and new mediums on lap 44.
Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: "A great job from Romain, and also from all of the race team here, to work so well at what is nearly the end of a very long season. Thanks too to everyone at Enstone for all their efforts which we were hoping would be rewarded by both cars in the points. It's a big shame that Pastor received a penalty as otherwise he would have finished at least P10, and this is very frustrating for all of us."
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: "That was a strong race where we got back to where we should have been fighting after yesterday's disappointing qualifying. Romain drove superbly today and Pastor should have scored too were it not for his penalty."
A disappointing Brazilian Grand Prix for the Sauber F1 Team. Felipe Nasr finished his home race in P13, while Marcus Ericsson was 16th.
Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: "A disappointing result, especially when you consider the starting position and the speed we showed. Marcus had a bad start, which lost him his rhythm and, unfortunately, Felipe was unable to make the most of his grid positon. At the season finale in Abu Dhabi the track should us suit better."
Will Stevens achieved his objective of ending today's Formula 1 Grande Prêmio Petrobras do Brasil 2015 as the lead Manor Marussia F1 Team driver when he took the chequered flag in 18th place. In yet another two-car finish for the team - the 13th of the season - Alexander Rossi had to settle for 19th place after struggling with the balance of his car throughout the 71 lap race.
John Booth, Team Principal: "I think Will had a much more enjoyable day than Alexander and he is pretty happy, having focused rather more on the race throughout the weekend. Everything came together for him today, whereas Alex seemed to have a really difficult balance and he was battling with the car from start to finish, so I'm sure it seemed like a very long race for him. For Abu Dhabi we have Roberto back in the car and Alex will be focusing on his GP2 team's championship position, but I'd like to commend him on five very strong races with us and it has been a pleasure to have him around."
Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg won the Brazilian Grand Prix with a three-stop strategy, running one stint on the P Zero Yellow soft tyre followed by three remaining stints on the P Zero White medium tyre.
Rosberg was able to hold off his team mate Lewis Hamilton - on a similar strategy - from start to finish, maintaining his advantage from lights to flag without losing the effective lead of the race. Track temperatures remained warm, albeit cooler than the 50 degrees seen during qualifying, while the threatened rain did not occur. The track temperature progressively dropped however throughout the race, ending up at 35 degrees, which reduced wear and degradation in the later stages.
The top three all used a three-stop strategy, but there was a wide variety of tactics at work behind them. The highest-placed two-stopper by the end of the race was Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, who used the strategy to gain fourth by the end of the grand prix, finishing just off the podium behind his Ferrari team mate Sebastian Vettel.
All the drivers started on the soft tyre with the exception of Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz and Lotus driver Pastor Maldonado. The Venezuelan completed a long opening stint on his medium tyres, while Force India's Nico Hulkenberg completed an even longer closing stint with the same compound - underlining the variety of strategic thinking in the closely fought race. Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo also adopted an alternative strategy to climb seven places from his grid position, switching from soft to medium on lap two.
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director: "With weather conditions warm but uncertain, strategy was always going to be a key element of the Brazilian Grand Prix. Rosberg's considered approach to tyre management over the course of the whole weekend once again proved to be a key element of his victory, which was very well deserved. However, there were a number of drivers operating a two-stop race. We saw some long stints on the medium compound that helped drivers gain track position."
Truth-O-Meter
We predicted that the most likely fastest strategy for the 71 laps of Brazil was a two-stopper, starting on the soft and then changing to the medium on laps 17 and 44. Rosberg (and Hamilton) went for a soft-medium-medium-medium three-stop strategy, stopping on laps 14, 34 and 49. Hamilton's identical strategy meant that he stopped one lap later than his team-mate on each occasion.
