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Rosberg survives the Mexican mess | 2016 Mexican Grand Prix recap

Roughly ten messy laps defined the Mexican Grand Prix – five laps at the start and five at the end. Those laps included a couple of actual wrecks and a few more near wrecks that turned the entire day into chaos. To have any chance of winning the 2016 Driver's Championship, Lewis Hamilton needed to get his Mercedes-AMG Petronas across the finish line ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg. Once again we got a weekend full of vintage Hamilton, the Brit dominating the from Friday to Sunday, except for the first corner of the first lap. Pole-sitter Hamilton reached Turn 1 clearly in front of the field. But he couldn't make the corner and stay on track, so he zipped into the runoff area and over the grass, rejoining at Turn 3 still ahead of the field. The stewards didn't penalize Hamilton, one commentator's explanation being that Hamilton "was not battling another car." The non-action left car #44 to enjoy a lights-to-flag win. At that very same corner, Rosberg also availed himself of the runoff area. His infraction seemed destined to incur a penalty until replays showed that Max Verstappen in the Red Bull slid wide and bumped Rosberg, causing the German to go off track. No penalties were handed out there, either. Verstappen would return to hound Rosberg later in the race when angling for second place. Verstappen took a stab through Turn 4 on Lap 50 of the 71-lap race, but ran off the track and lost touch with the Mercedes by Lap 55. Ferrari got half of its strategy right in Mexico, putting Sebastian Vettel hard on the charge in the final stint. The German got within DRS range of Verstappen on Lap 67, with Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo a little more than a second behind Vettel. On Lap 68, Verstappen pulled the same move as Hamilton at the beginning of the race: the Dutchman ran wide through Turn 1, zoomed over the grass and rejoined the track at Turn 3, staying ahead of Vettel the whole time. With three laps remaining, the stewards chose to investigate after the race. In spite of Verstappen's own team telling he probably needed to cede position to Vettel, Verstappen stayed in front and slowed just enough to put Vettel under threat from Ricciardo. On Lap 70 Ricciardo had closed up to Vettel's gearbox. Headed for Turn 4, Vettel swung outside to take the corner. When Ricciardo moved inside to pass, Vettel moved inside to block the Aussie while both cars were in the braking zone. The Ferrari made light contact with the Red Bull, but Vettel held his position through Turn 5.

Mercedes testing C-Class plug-in hybrid modes in Germany

Testing appears to be underway for what would be the first Mercedes-Benz C-Class with a hybrid powertrain. We can see a pair of the prototypes undergoing testing in Germany, with one, a C-Class Wagon, still heavily clad in camouflage and featuring a more noticeable outlet on the passenger side of its rear bumper.
There's also a more production-looking sedan, which features a not-so-discreet flap over its rear-bumper outlet. It's difficult to speculate on power outputs for this fuel-sipping C-Class, although our spies seem to think that this car will feature some combination of a four-cylinder gas engine with an electric motor, although just which four is unclear (note, we wouldn't mind if MB fit its 2.0-liter turbo with some batteries and motors). Regardless, the four-pot/electric motor seems like a pretty reasonable combo, although it probably means that Mercedes won't be challenging the six-cylinder-powered system of the BMW ActiveHybrid3 any time soon.
When the plug-in C-Class arrives later this year as a 2015 model, it will likely offer a full range of driving modes, including both gas or electric, only, as well as a more traditional hybrid mode.

2015 Brazilian Grand Prix is the same as it ever was

At this point, we hope Nico Rosberg is planning to carry his current qualifying form into the 2016 season and back it up with the same kind of race-day cojones he showed winning the race in Mexico City two weeks ago. The Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver got it right enough again on Saturday afternoon to take his fifth consecutive pole position ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton by almost a tenth of a second. It's the same one-two from Brazil last year. The bad news for the rest of the field is that the winner in Brazil the last seven years has been one of the two drivers on the front row. Last year it was the Williams duo that lined up behind Mercedes, this year it's Ferrari. Sebastian Vettel plays the stalking horse, securing third in his Ferrari ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen in fourth. Williams driver Valtteri Bottas actually qualified in fourth, but he had to serve a three-spot grid penalty for passing under red flags in Free Practice 2, so he started sixth. That promoted Sahara Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg up to fifth. Daniil Kvyat was the quickest representative from Infiniti Red Bull Racing, getting into seventh even with a Renault power unit that's weak on some of the key stretches at the Interlagos track. Felipe Massa had the second Williams in eighth, in front of the second Red Bull driven by Daniel Ricciardo in ninth. Toro Rosso hasn't confirmed its drivers for next year but Max Verstappen keeps making it hard to look elsewhere, taking 10th. Rosberg is working nearly the same trick he pulled last year: drive like a second driver for most of the year, drive like a world champion for the last quarter of a season. He pulled away at the start and covered Hamilton just enough on the run to the first corner to keep Hamilton on the outside. By the end of Turn 1 the German had the lead and didn't give it up for the rest of the race outside of pit stops. Without overwhelming pace to pass and unable to follow closely, Hamilton could do nothing except ask his team for a different strategy to go for the win. When Mercedes told him "No," trying to protect Rosberg's second place in the championship ahead of Vettel, that was the race. Just like last year, Rosberg and Hamilton finished one-two. Vettel, Raikkonen, Bottas, Hulkenberg, and Kvyat drove lonely races to finish in positions three through seven.