Nico Hulkenberg (P10, 1 pt): 7.5/10
After being ignominiously excluded from the results of the Japanese Grand Prix to the use of illegal driver aids on their cars, it's a credit to Renault that they bounced straight back by getting both drivers into the top ten again this week in Mexico. Of the two, Nico Hulkenberg was the stronger performer in Friday's practice session but then they both lost the whole of FP3 due to a technical issue on the sister R.S.19s which put them on the back foot going into qualifying. In fact, missing out on Q3 might have been a blessing in disguise as it gave them a free choice of type of tyre on which to start the race on. Hulkenberg went for the medium and put it to good use in the first half of the race, climbing to eighth place before it was time to pit. He had a harder time of it on the hard compound, and the rubber was definitely shot long before the closing laps which presented an opportunity for Daniil Kvyat to make an opportunistic lunge in the final corner of the race that spun Hulkenberg out of ninth place. Justice was at least half served when Kvyat's ten second penalty for causing a collision restored Hulkenberg to the top ten, but he was still irked by what happened: "I had no grip [so] it doesn't take much to spin," he said. "It was a shame as it cost us an extra point."
