2016 Mexican Grand Prix preview

The F1 circus returned to Mexico last year and in my opinion it was a great track. But what happened at the race last year?

The start was good for most of the drivers in the top 10 (no big changes really). Only Sebastian Vettel had a big loss when he got a puncture and had to pit. He dropped to the back of course and had a long way to the front. His teammate Kimi Räikkönen overtook a lot of cars through the race and seemed to do better than Vettel. Until he had a rerun from Sochi with his fellow Finn Valtteri Bottas. This time Kimi was in front and Bottas behind, they collided and Kimi had to retire. Bottas didn't loose any positions like Kimi in Sochi and managed to stay 5th or 4th most of the time. 

Later on Vettel made a weird mistake and went off track into the barriers. Some say that the track wasn't good for Ferrari but I don't believe that. Kimi did better than Vettel in the race even though his car had been broken in many ways through the weekend. I say that the track wasn't good for Vettel (even though he got 3rd in qualifying).

Vettel's mistake brought out the safety car and several drivers pitted right after. Williams did a mistake again by not bringing in Bottas first. Well they did after the rest had pitted but Bottas could have done quicker laps with the new tires earlier. Now he was stuck behind Daniil Kvyat in 4th place. Luckily for Bottas he managed to overtake the Russian right after the safety car left the track and stayed 3rd till the end. So Bottas took back what he might have lost.

In front were the Mercedes drivers as usual but this time it was Nico Rosberg 1st and Lewis Hamilton 2nd. They stayed like that through the race and Lewis didn't really have a chance against Nico and it bugged him after the race. You could clearly see that even though he was already the 2015 world champion. Lewis just likes to win even though the championship was already decided.

Hamilton tried to pull a couple of tricks in the race though. Mercedes asked Rosberg to pit first and when it was Hamilton's turn he didn't pit. He said that he will drive the race till the end with his older tires. His engineer got a bit angry with Hamilton and told him to pit right away because his tires are getting cold by the pit box. Hamilton pitted and demanded to see proof that his pitstop wasn't just Mercedes way of securing a 1-2.

All in all a good race, great track and awesome fans! I loved how they had put the podium at the old baseball stadium so that most of the fans could see everything. I hope Mexico stays in the calendar for many years to come.

Now let's see my predictions for this years grand prix:

Pole position: Nico Rosberg, Mercedes

Race:

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
2. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
3. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull

Fastest lap: Nico Rosberg, Mercedes

Surprise: Sergio Perez and Felipe Massa might get good results here

Post your own predictions to our F1-4-LIFE PREDICTORS LEAGUE!

The rules:

POINTS:  1st - 3  2nd - 5  3rd - 10 

HOW IT WORKS: the aim of the game is simply predict who comes where in the race (top3). A total of 18 points can be won on a race day. If you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points same if you get 1 correct. eg. 2nd you get 5 points. If a driver wins the race and you said he would come 2nd or 3rd no points would be awarded. Same if he came in another position, and you predicted that wrong. A table will be posted up every race weekend. The point scoring system will change once the cars become more competitive. Everyone will say a merc 1,2 so it won't be close or fun. 

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PREDICTIONS: send an email to f14lifeblog@gmail.com or message the Facebook page to submit your predictions. You have until lights out to make them. If you submit them when the race has started they won't count. So be quick! like the Mercedes. 

THE PRIZE: the winner of the league will win themselves a admin place on the F1 4 LIFE page along side AE, JT, MW, MH, JI and PM. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway. We may also come up with some other prize if it helps. 

That's it for today and if you want to send me feedback then email me: f14lifeblog@gmail.com