The official 2015 ASN Driver Rankings have been updated to reflect the 2015 Mexican Grand Prix – which we are calling the Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix [due to the enthusiastic crowd reasons]. The 2015 Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix is held at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City which had only recently been resurfaced shortly before the race.
The 2015 Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix looked to be a potentially good race for second place since Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton had already clinched his third world championship at last week’s 2015 ‘Murica Grand Prix in Austin, Texas. But alas, it was not to be, thanks to Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who inexplicably hit Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel on a first lap corner when he had no chance of passing Vettel on said corner. The hit caused a tire puncture to Vettel’s Ferrari which meant Vettel could only limp around the track until he got back to the pit to change the tire and that put him at the back of the field and virtually eliminated any battle with the pole-sitting Nico Rosberg of Mercedes for overall second place in the Formula One season standings.
With Vettel out of his hair and Ricciardo now a confirmed addition to Rosberg’s X-mas card list, all Rosberg had to do was make sure he stayed in front of a disinterested Hamilton, who was merely going through the motions. That proved to be easy enough and the only remaining drama was the Finn-on-Finn action of Williams’ Valtteri Bottas taking out his fellow Finn, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, in what was seen as a retaliatory move for a similar hit Raikkonen administered to Bottas at last month’s 2015 Russian Grand Putin Prix. Bottas survived the fracas and went on to claim third in the Vettel-less field after Vettel crashed out in frustration in Lap 53.
As for the driver standings, the top points must go to Rosberg for finally following through on what probably should have been his race victory last week in Texas were it not for a rogue gust of wind [wink, wink]. The runner-up spot is awarded to McLaren’s Jenson Button for somehow getting his McLaren to finish 14th despite not having taken a single qualifying run and having to watch as his teammate Fernando Alonso went out with mechanical issue before even completing a single lap. The third and final placing goes to Hamilton for sleepwalking to his second-place finish. Vettel still maintains a four-point advantage over Hamilton and can clinch the ASN season title this weekend at the 2015 Brazilian Grand Prix.
For the other awards, the Pastor Maldonado Driving School Award was a two-man race between Ricciardo and Bottas with each hitting a Ferrari and being responsible for knocking that Ferrari out of the race. However, while Bottas’ hit occurred in the 23rd lap and had the additional dramatic elements of both a precedent-setting incident and a cultural battle, ASN feels the award must go to Ricciardo who really had no good reason to hit Vettel on the first lap of the race. Lotus’ Romain Grosjean remains tied with Maldonado for the lead in Maldonado’s signature award category.
Despite the race for the season titles being over, there was still some amount of chatter on the radio for the 2015 Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix but ASN declares Vettel as the winner after hearing that Ricciardo claimed he had “no place to go” as the reasoning for hitting him on the first lap, to which Vettel responded – “Where the hell was he supposed to go?” – in claiming the winner of the Kimi Raikkonen “Leave Me Alone, I Know What I’m Doing!” Award for the 2015 Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix. With that result, Hamilton has clinched a tie for the win in this category and only his teammate Rosberg can tie him.
Finally, the Lewis Hamilton Doofus Moment Award for the 2015 Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix goes to the Force India team, who had an engineer tell driver Nico Hulkenberg to “shut up!” while Hulkenberg was asking if he was on a warm-up lap during qualifying. Hamilton has already clinched the win in his signature award category.
The 2015 Formula One season continues with the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos at 8 a.m. [PDT] on NBC on November 15, 2015.
The 2015 ASN Formula One Driver Standings [after the Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix]
1] Sebastian Vettel – 30 points
2] Lewis Hamilton – 26 points
3] Nico Rosberg – 11 points
4] Valtteri Bottas – five points
5] Jenson Button/Kimi Raikkonen/Daniel Ricciardo – four points
8] Romain Grosjean/Felipe Massa – three points
10] Fernando Alonso/Nico Hulkenberg/Daniil Kvyat/Sergio Perez/Alexander Rossi/Max Verstappen – two points
16] Pastor Maldonado – one point
The 2015 Pastor Maldonado Driving School Award Standings [after the Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix]
1] Grosjean/Maldonado – 3.5 points
2] Marcus Ericsson/Ricciardo – two points
3] Bottas pit/Ericsson pit/Hamilton/Hamilton pit/Raikkonen/Raikkonen pit/Sainz, Jr. – one point
The 2015 Kimi Raikkonen Leave Me Alone I Know What I’m Doing Award Standings [after the Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix]
1] Hamilton – 4.5 points
2] Rosberg – 2.5 points
3] Button/Vettel – 2 points
5] Alonso/Bottas/Hamilton pit/Raikkonen/Ricciardo pit/Will Stevens – one point
The 2015 Lewis Hamilton Doofus Moment Award [after the Mexican Jumping Bean Grand Prix]
1] Hamilton – seven points
2] Bernie Ecclestone/Vettel – two points
3] Alonso/Team Ferrari/Team Force India/Christian Horner/Team McLaren/Team Mercedes – one point