2015

In the second season of the hybrid era Mercedes again won 16 of the 19 races, with their drivers finishing one-two in 12 of them. Lewis Hamilton took 10 wins and 11 poles and defended his title with three rounds to spare, while Nico Rosberg won six races. The season opened with the Australian Grand Prix on 15 March and closed with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 29 November 2015; Mercedes scored 703 points in the Constructors’ Championship.

Mercedes’ main rivals were Ferrari, where Sebastian Vettel had moved. He won as early as the second race, the Malaysian Grand Prix on 29 March 2015 — Ferrari’s first win since the 2014 season, in which the team had not won at all. Vettel then won in Hungary and Singapore, and in Singapore he also took the only pole of the season that did not go to Mercedes. Ferrari finished second with 428 points and Williams third, while Red Bull, without a win, dropped to fourth.

Hamilton won the opening race and never gave up the championship lead. Rosberg won in Spain, Monaco and Austria, but after the summer break Hamilton won in Belgium and Italy, and then in Japan, Russia and the United States. His only retirement of the season came in Singapore, where Vettel won. After retiring in Russia, Rosberg dropped to third in the standings, behind Vettel. Going into the United States Grand Prix Hamilton led Vettel by 66 points and Rosberg by 73, with four races left.

The champion was decided at the United States Grand Prix on 25 October 2015. Rosberg started from pole and Hamilton second; Hamilton won, Rosberg finished second, and Vettel climbed from 13th on the grid to third. After the race Hamilton had 327 points to Vettel’s 251 and Rosberg’s 247, and no more than 75 were left in the three remaining races. Hamilton became world champion for the third time, and for the second year running. Rosberg won the last three races — in Mexico, Brazil and Abu Dhabi — from pole; in all, he took six poles in a row at the end of the season, starting in Japan. Those wins lifted him to second in the championship: 322 points to Vettel’s 278.

Honda returned to the championship as the power unit supplier for McLaren, where Fernando Alonso had moved from Ferrari. In the partnership’s first season McLaren scored 27 points and finished ninth in the Constructors’ Championship. The rules introduced the Virtual Safety Car: under it, every driver has to slow down all around the track, without bunching up in a queue behind the safety car.

The former Marussia team raced as Manor Marussia: they missed the Australian Grand Prix, started from the second round and failed to score. Only 15 cars took the start of the opening race in Australia. The 19-round calendar had no German Grand Prix, but the Mexican Grand Prix was held for the first time since 1992 — Rosberg won it on 1 November 2015.

Max Verstappen made his debut for Toro Rosso at the Australian Grand Prix on 15 March 2015, aged 17, becoming the youngest driver ever to take part in a World Championship race. He finished fourth twice — in Hungary and the United States — and scored 49 points, while his team-mate Carlos Sainz, also a rookie, scored 18. Felipe Nasr finished fifth in his very first race for Sauber. Roberto Merhi made his debut with Manor, as did Alexander Rossi, who drove five races at the end of the season.

Daniil Kvyat moved up from Toro Rosso to Red Bull, finished second in Hungary for his first podium and ended the season three points ahead of his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo: 95 to 92. It was the last Formula 1 season for Pastor Maldonado, Will Stevens, Roberto Merhi and Alexander Rossi, and for the Lotus team: from 2016 their base became home to the works Renault team.