He won the race for Mercedes, followed by his teammate Lewis Hamilton, who had secured the Drivers' Championship at the previous event in the United States.

[5] The first corner complex was tightened on entry, while the middle part of the track was completely re-profiled, retaining much of the original design whilst reducing the reliance on aerodynamic grip.

[6] One week prior to the race, Hurricane Patricia—the largest tropical storm cell in the Northern Hemisphere on record—crossed the Mexican coastline near Cuixmala in Jalisco state.

[11] The first session on Friday started on a damp track, described by Sebastian Vettel as "ridiculously slippery", with the first half-hour of running done on intermediate tyres.

Nico Rosberg's Mercedes suffered from overheating rear brakes, forcing him back to the pit lane while he held the fastest time.

Carlos Sainz Jr. recorded the most timed laps with 37, and finished eighth fastest, ahead of local favourite Sergio Pérez and Felipe Massa.

Jolyon Palmer again replaced Romain Grosjean at the wheel of the Lotus, as he would do for the rest of the season, and finished fifteenth fastest, 0.2 seconds slower than teammate Pastor Maldonado.

The biggest accident of the practice came after just five minutes, when Max Verstappen crashed at the exit of the stadium, bringing out red flags.

After the running resumed, Valtteri Bottas lost the rear of his Williams FW37, caused by a fault in his DRS flap,[13] and crashed at turn one.

Jenson Button ran 25 laps and finished ninth fastest albeit spending half of the session in the pit lane, while the team equipped his car with a new power unit.

[14] Nico Rosberg was again fastest in the final practice session on Saturday morning with a time of 1:21.083, edging out teammate Hamilton by 0.014 seconds.

Marcus Ericsson was more than half a second quicker than teammate Felipe Nasr, who failed to proceed into Q2, as did both Manor Marussia drivers.

With Button out of the running, just one more driver was eliminated, and that proved to be his McLaren teammate Alonso, who barely missed out on making the cut.

Räikkönen went out on the harder compound tyre, but aborted his running after spinning in turn one, leaving him fifteenth fastest with a grid penalty for his gearbox change yet to come.

[17] In Q3, both Mercedes drivers set two consecutive fast laps at the beginning of the session, with Rosberg coming out on top, 0.188 seconds ahead of his teammate.

The two Mercedes drivers were closely followed by Vettel, ahead of the two Red Bulls of Kvyat and Ricciardo, both Williams cars and Verstappen in eighth.

Kimi Räikkönen, who was told early on to cool his brakes, made good progress up the field and was in 13th position by lap 8.

[19][20] On lap 48, Mercedes changed strategies, bringing in both drivers for another tyre stop, much to the dismay of Lewis Hamilton, who complained to his team over the radio.

On the same lap, Sebastian Vettel spun once more at turn seven, this time hitting the barriers, ending his race and bringing out the safety car.

[21] During the caution period, the order stood as: Rosberg, Hamilton, Kvyat, Bottas, Ricciardo, Massa, Hülkenberg, Pérez, Verstappen and Grosjean.

[23][24] Local favourite Sergio Pérez, who had been on a one-stop strategy, said after the race that it had been the safety car period that "destroyed" his chances at a better result, but added: "What I could do, I did perfectly, so I'm happy with that.

[28] Speaking about the collision between Kimi Räikkönen and Valtteri Bottas, Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene said: "It's an accident, it's part of the show.