Is Mansell's outrageous overtake Mexico's greatest F1 moment?

On lap 30 Bandini misjudged his braking and rear-ended Hill’s BRM P261, damaging its exhaust and dropping the Brit down the order – he’d limp round for the rest of the race in the vain hope of picking up some points.

This meant it looked like Clark would win the race and tie with Hill on points, but would take the title due to having more race wins that season.

Then disaster struck. With two laps to go an oil line failed on the Lotus, its engine seizing just after Clark started the final lap.

This meant Hill would be champion after all, before the provisional standings changed again in a matter of feet.

Realising the title implications, Ferrari instructed second-placed Bandini to let his following team-mate Surtees through, allowing the latter to clinch the title by one point in a thrilling finale. So excited were the witnesses to the title tumult, apparently few even noticed Gurney crossing the line for the win.

Surtees made history as the first – and still only – person to win both motorcycling and F1’s top championship prize.

Hill, who had seen the title snatched away from him due to someone else’s error, sent Bandini a vinyl LP of driving lessons as a Christmas present.

1965: Richie Ginther takes Honda’s first F1 win

One year on and Mexico again played host to an historic F1 event, this time Honda’s first championship race win.

Richie Ginther had driven for grand prix frontrunners in Ferrari and BRM, collecting 13 podiums in the process, but the top step had proved elusive.

Driving in an instantly competitive Honda RA272 in ’65, the Japanese-American axis had been blighted by reliability issues. A pair of sixth places was all it had to show for its efforts.

Up in Mexico though, it all came good. Having qualified 0.3sec off the pace of pole man Jim Clark and Brabham’s Dan Gurney, Ginther shot into the lead at the start, and never looked back.

Honda’s first efforts in F1 the previous year hadn’t brought much joy with a debut RA271 car driven by American Ronnie Bucknum, but Mexico represented a landmark in several ways. It was the only time in 1965 that a non-British marque would win a championship race, and the last world championship event of the 1500cc era before the three-litre ruleset was brought in.

1968: Hill claims second title in action packed race

Fast-forward to 1968 and again Mexico was the scene of an F1 title face-off.

Now at Lotus, Graham Hill was once more in with a championship chance, this time going up against ’67 champ Denny Hulme, driving for McLaren, and Jackie Stewart campaigning for Ken Tyrrell’s Matra operation.

Swiss driver Jo Siffert had started on pole, with Hill, Hulme and Stewart third, fourth and seventh respectively. However, Hill led off the line from Stewart, before the Scot snatched the lead from the Englishman on lap five.

Hill was back in first by lap nine before he then ceded that to Siffert. Hulme had been running fourth, but the reigning champion saw his rear suspension collapse at high-speed through Peraltada, sending him smashing into the barriers and causing his McLaren to catch fire.

In what would become a common sight over the next few years, some of the crowd had now vaulted the barriers and were watching the race from the side of the track.

“After Jacky Ickx’s car cut dead, the Belgian parked out on the circuit, and then as he did not want to walk far with his bad leg, he sat on the bank with the spectators,” reported Motor Sport that day.

Hill retook the lead on lap 24 when Siffert’s throttle linkage broke, handing him the win and an emotional second drivers’ title – the charismatic Englishman had had to carry his Lotus team when its other star driver Jim Clark had died in an F2 crash at Hockenheim earlier that year.

1986: Berger wins Benetton’s first F1 race

Gerhard Berger came into F1 like a rocket: having only competed in fewer than 20 open-wheel races, he was drafted in to the ATS team for the end of 1984.

Despite nearly being killed in a car crash that winter, in which his car went over the side of a cliff in Austria, he discharged himself from hospital – complete with screws in his skull and a metal plate in his neck – against doctors’ advice after one week, going to the UK and signing for Arrows, scoring his first F1 points later in ’85.

By early ’86 he had taken his first podium with Benetton, and at the end of that year he claimed a debut win in Mexico for the young team.

He did so at the wheel of the monstrous – yet disarmingly colourful – Benetton B186. Powered by a formidable BMW turbo engine, it had the best part of 1,500bhp in qualifying trim.

“Benetton was a very happy time,” Berger told Motor Sport. “Working with Pat Symonds, still one of the best engineers in F1. And there was Rory Byrne, a genius, the best designer of his generation.”

The Austrian transferred that feel-good factor to the track at Mexico ’86. Qualifying fourth, 0.6sec off Ayrton Senna’s Lotus, Berger and his team had a plan.

Utilising some Pirelli preservation prowess, the Benetton squad elected not to make a stop, running the whole race on one set of wheels.

Berger would get into third, before being overtaken several laps later by McLaren’s Alain Prost. The Austrian hung on though, and in the space of six laps, from lap 39 onwards, Prost, Senna and Nelson Piquet had all pitted, leaving the Benetton in the lead – and there he stayed.

It would be a famous first win for Berger and Benetton, and the last for BMW until until its return with Williams when Ralf Schumacher won the 2001 San Marino GP.

“The BMW engine ran faultlessly, everything held together, and although Berger drives in the style of Keke Rosberg, or the late Jochen Rindt, where an accident looks inevitable but never actually happens, he never looked troubled,” reported Motor Sport in ’86.

“He romped home to a deserved victory, bringing well-deserved joy to the colourful Benetton team and the successful Benetton knitwear-manufacturing family.”

1990: Mansell’s audacious outside overtake

Whether he was racing at the front, midfield or the back, Mansell never gave anything less than 100%.

Though the 1992 champion made his all-action style famous with several legendary overtakes, one of the standout moves was his pass on Gerhard Berger for second at Mexico ’90.

The race had mainly been about Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian leading serenely leading until put out by tyre issues, retiring on lap 63, allowing Ferrari’s Prost take the win.

Behind him though, the on-track exchanges were intense.

Mansell had spent long stretches in second place until Berger rudely sent his McLaren, wheels locked, tyres smoking, up the inside at Turn 1 on lap 66.

The pair spent the next tour squabbling, Mansell desperate to find a way back past.

By the end of the lap, he did so. Feinting one way and then the other, as the two approached the Peraltada the Brit opted for the outside, and kept his foot in.

The result was one of F1’s greatest overtakes, Mansell using the slight banking of the corner to slingshot past Berger and hare off into the distance.

“I’d made my mind up that I was just going to go in there flat, and that’s exactly what I did.” said Mansell afterwards. “Fortunately Gerhard lifted!”

2016: Vettel loses his cool

Let’s be honest with ourselves, the Mexican GP’s modern iteration has yet to throw up a classic.

After Nico Rosberg won on the race’s return in 2015, Hamilton and Verstappen have since dominated, with no-one else winning.

While the track’s twistier sections have thrown up a few skirmishes, race-long battles have been few and far between.

However, one memorable moment to result from the race’s third wind was Sebatian Vettel’s 2016 outburst, when the German blew a fuse – or rather several.

Battling with a young Max Verstappen late in the race, the Dutchman cut the second corner after the first turn, careering over the grass so as to maintain position.

Vettel emotionally appealed over the radio for the Red Bull driver to hand the place back, but to no avail.

While it was announced that incident would be investigated after the race, Vettel now found he was having to defend from Verstappen’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, whom the Dutchman was backing him into.

The German lost his cool in spectacular fashion, “**** you Charlie!” in reference to F1’s late race director Charlie Whiting.

Verstappen was handed a penalty for his original corner-cut, putting Vettel on the podium, but from there things got worse.

The Ferrari man was then penalised for blocking a Ricciardo overtake under braking, meaning the Australian was ultimately promoted to third retrospectively, with Verstappen fourth and Vettel fifth. Ouch.