They might has well have not bothered to even run the 2015 Brazilian Grand Prix – at least as far as the top four cars were concerned – as those cars finished exactly as they started and Mercedes sped off to yet another 1-2 finish in a Formula One race with Nico Rosberg defeating a tired-from-partying-too-much Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel finishing in his customary third position behind the Mercedes duo.
Rosberg held the pole position going into the race and led from start to finish, winning easily over the mostly disinterested Hamilton, who had already secured his third world championship coming into the event. While Rosberg and Hamilton were running away from most of the rest of the field, Vettel was trying to maintain pace and stay within shouting distance in case anything went wrong with either Mercedes and he could take advantage of it. Nothing went wrong at all for Rosberg and nothing went wrong enough for Hamilton to allow Vettel to get close enough to do anything about it and so the Mercedes 1-Mercedes 2-Vettel finish played out again for the sixth time this year.
The only drama in the race emerged from two sources – how many cars could remain on the lead lap and how would NBCSN try to make its coverage entertaining? The answer to the first question was an embarrassing four cars – out of a starting grid of 20 – were capable of remaining on the lead lap by the time Rosberg crossed the finish line in first place. Only the three podium positions and fourth-place finisher, Kimi Raikkonen, were able to stay on the lead lap while 80% of the field was lapped once or numerous times.
The answer to the second question came in the later stages of the race when it became clear that the only reason for watching the race was not to see who would win any of the podium spots but rather if something else exciting might suddenly happen elsewhere on the track [possibly involving Pastor Maldonado]. Maldonado did indeed provide a brief clip of entertainment by hitting Marcus Ericsson on Lap 34 but NBCSN got desperate and decided to spend the final 20 minutes of the race showing position battles between lapped cars and changed the bottom ticker to display intervals between positions rather than time behind the leading car since nearly all the cars had been lapped by that point in the race.
Hamilton, of course, already has the season championship in the bag so, with his win, Rosberg clinches second place in the overall standings with 297 points to Vettel’s 266 points with only the season-ending race at Abu Dhabi left on the schedule.
2015 Brazilian Grand Prix – Interlagos – Results – 71 laps – 190 miles
1
Nico Rosberg – Mercedes
2
Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes
3
Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari
4
Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari
5
Valtteri Bottas – Williams
6
Nico Hulkenberg – Force India
7
Daniil Kvyat – Red Bull
8
Felipe Massa – Williams
9
Romain Grosjean – Lotus
10
Max Verstappen – Toro Rosso
11
Pastor Maldonado – Lotus
12
Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull
13
Sergio Perez – Force India
14
Felipe Nasr – Sauber
15
Jenson Button – McLaren
16
Fernando Alonso – McLaren
17
Marcus Ericsson – Sauber
18
Will Stevens – Marussia
19
Alexander Rossi – Marussia
20
Carlos Sainz Jr. – Toro Rosso