Six of the Best: Mexican Grands Prix

Formula One returns to Mexico this week following a 22-year absence, with the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez set to add a new chapter to its storied history as host circuit of the Mexican Grand Prix.

Mexico has been the setting for many classic races during its time on the F1 calendar, so let Crash.net's look back at some of the very best Mexican GPs whet the appetite for the kind of fare we can hopefully expect from the class of 2015 this Sunday.

1964

Mexico may be returning to the calendar at the back end of the season, but in the 1960s the country regularly hosted the final round of the campaign - leading to some classic championship showdowns being fought around the bumps and curves of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

The conclusion to the 1964 season was one of the most dramatic in Formula One history, with three Britons, John Surtees (Ferrari), Jim Clark (Lotus) and Graham Hill (BRM), competing to cap a season of nip and tuck with a decisive final move to take the crown.

The permutations were myriad, but it appeared to be Hill's to lose, with the debonair Englishman leading the standings on 39 points and in sight of his second title. Surtees was second, on 34 points, and had not only a maiden F1 championship in his sights but the honour of becoming the first man in history to win the world title on two and four wheels, having triumphed in the 1956, 1958, 1959 and 1960 world motorbike championships. Clark, who had dominated the 1963 season, had endured a difficult defence of his crown, and trailed on 30 points - knowing that nothing but a win would be sufficient to overhaul Hill.

Clark duly took pole position with a scintillating lap almost a second quicker than Dan Gurney's Brabham in second and Surtees' Ferrari teammate, Lorenzo Bandini, lining up third. Surtees himself, running in an unfamiliar blue and white livery due to a dispute between Enzo Ferrari and the Italian National Automobile Club, qualified fourth, with Hill down in sixth. If they finished in grid order, Clark would take the title.

The Scot duly bolted from pole position, chased by Gurney, while Surtees fell back with a misfire and Hill surged through the pack after a disastrous start when the elastic on his goggles broke. However, while duelling with Bandini on lap 31, Hill was hit by the sister Ferrari, cracking the BRM's exhaust and sending the Englishman spinning down the order.

It was now advantage Clark, who would tie Hill's score with a win but take the title on countback with four wins to Hill's two. The Lotus ran a dominant race until the mechanical gremlins which had hampered Clark's season struck again painfully close to home. Clark's engine began leaking oil just seven laps from the end before finally failing on the penultimate lap, eliminating the Scot from the race and championship contention.

Clark's retirement was a doubly galling blow for Lotus, as a win for the Scot would have secured the constructors' title for the team, but his failure ensured Ferrari's lead in the standings would remain insurmountable.

The dramatic development left Surtees, whose misfire had long healed, in third behind Gurney and Bandini, but he still needed second place in order to snatch the title from Hill, who was running well down the order in 11th. As they crossed the line to start the last lap, the Ferrari team waved frantically at Bandini for him to slow and allow his teammate to pass. The Italian sportingly waved Surtees through, and the six points for second place were enough to see Surtees take the title by one point - confirming his piece of unprecedented and likely never to be repeated piece of history.

1967

The championship battle would again go down to the wire in Mexico City in 1967, with an all-Antipodean clash between Brabham stablemates Denny Hulme of New Zealand and Australia's Jack Brabham.

It was the first time since Brabham himself secured his second title in 1960 by ousting Cooper teammate Bruce McLaren that the title would be fought between two men in the same machinery. The standings presented a simple equation: Hulme, on 47 points, needed just fourth place to seal a maiden crown, while Brabham, on 42 points, had to win with Hulme fifth or lower to defend the title and claim his fourth championship - having become the first and to date only man to win the title at the wheel of a car bearing his own name in 1966.

Neither contender qualified particularly strongly, with Brabham lining up fifth and Hulme alongside him in sixth. Jim Clark in the Lotus had taken a dominant pole position, although the mechanical fallibility of the Lotus 49 offered a glimmer of hope to the chasing pack.

That hope was almost manifested at the start of the race as third-place starter Dan Gurney ran his Eagle into the back of Clark, but the Scot escaped with only minor exhaust damage and was able to rejoin in third place. Clark was also suffering with a faulty clutch, but despite these ailments he quickly passed Chris Amon's Ferrari and teammate Hill in the sister Lotus to take the lead.

With Clark out front, Brabham's prospects looked grim - even after Hill retired with a driveshaft failure. Brabham was running third, behind Clark and Amon, but with Hulme on his tail knew that it would take a remarkable change of fortunes for the Australian to snatch the title.

Amon developed a misfire late in the race which allowed Brabham and Hulme to pass, but Clark's Lotus held together, and the three crossed the line in that order - confirming Hulme as champion with 51 points to Brabham's 46 (48 total). Brabham could take solace in winning the constructor's championship, but the drivers' title went to Hulme - perhaps the least heralded and low profile champion in Formula One history.

1968

A year later, the circus reconvened for yet another championship showdown at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. While two of the contenders, defending champion Denny Hulme and Graham Hill were veterans of past Mexican standoffs, the third, the up and coming Scot Jackie Stewart, was in the title hunt for the first time.

Formula One had suffered a great tragedy in 1968, when its finest driver, Jim Clark, had been killed during an F2 race at Hockenheim. Clark's death left a vacuum at the heart of the sport, and Hill had manfully picked up the pieces of the shattered Lotus team and carried them to the brink of the championship.

The race, which took place a week after the conclusion of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, was again set against a backdrop of abacus-busting permutations. Hill led the way on 39 points, with Stewart's Matra on 36 points and Hulme, now driving for McLaren, an outside bet on 33 points.

Jo Siffert took a surprise pole position in the Rob Walker Lotus 49, with Chris Amon's Ferrari second. Hill and Hulme lined up third and fourth, with Stewart down the order in seventh. A chaotic start saw Hill take the lead, lose it to John Surtees and then regain it again within the space of a lap, while Stewart clambered up to fourth with Hulme dropping back a place to fifth.

As the pack shuffled repeatedly in the early laps, the three contenders found themselves running out front. Stewart briefly overtook Hill for the lead, but was quickly re-passed, while Hulme developed handling problems and was passed by Siffert before retiring from the race, and championship contention, on lap 11 when a rear suspension failure sent him crashing out.

Hill and Stewart settled in to a straight fight, briefly interrupted by Siffert before he fell victim to a broken throttle cable, and pulled well clear of Jack Brabham in third place. In a race of high attrition, Stewart too suffered reliability issues, dropping back with a combination of fuel feed issues, handling problems and a misfire.

Hill coasted to an unchallenged victory to wrap up his second title, heading home Bruce McLaren and Jackie Oliver, with Stewart toiling to a distant seventh. While Hulme would never again come close to the F1 title, Stewart would go on to dominate the following half-decade, winning three of the next five titles to become Britain's first triple champion - a record finally matched by Lewis Hamilton in 2015.

1986

After severe crowd control problems at the 1970 Mexican GP, the race disappeared from the calendar for a generation, finally returning in 1986 at the height of the turbo era and in the midst of a classic championship battle between Williams teammates Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, and Alain Prost's McLaren.

The Autodromo Hermanes Rodriguez had been shortened and modernised since 1970, but it remained a daunting and bumpy challenge - with the famous Peraltada corner offering up its iconic, banked 180-degree challenge to a whole new generation of drivers.

The race was round 15 of the 16-race season, and Mexico was in a position to once again play host to the champion's coronation as Mansell held a 10-point lead over Piquet and an 11-point advantage over Prost heading into the race. A victory for Mansell would see the Englishman claim his first championship, but 'Nige' was dealing with extenuating challenges on and off the track.

First, Mansell contracted the notorious Montezemula's Revenge stomach bug upon arrival in Mexico City, and spent the weekend suffering the severe physical consequences. Then, a scathing article by James Hunt, Britain's last World Champion, was publishsed in The Times on Saturday before the race - with Hunt lambasting Mansell's character and popularity in the paddock.

Ayrton Senna, who had been eliminated from championship contention at the previous race in Portugal, took pole position from Piquet and Mansell, with the Benettons of Gerhard Berger and Riccardo Patrese lining up fourth and fifth ahead of Prost.

Piquet took the lead from Senna into the first corner, but Mansell suffered a disastrous start, dropping back to 18th after failing to find first gear off the line. Despite clawing his way back through the order, Mansell's all-out attack charge had damaged his tyres, necessitating a pit stop for fresh rubber.

The high tyre wear in searing heat would come to be a problem for all of the Goodyear-shod cars, with Mansell, Piquet and Senna all requiring several stops for new rubber. Prost, notoriously easy on his tyres with his smooth driving style, drove conservatively in only stopping once, and was able to rise through the order to second by the end of the race.

Out front though was Berger, the Pirelli tyres on the Austrian's Benetton proving far more durable than the Goodyears sported by his rivals. Berger was able to run non-stop, a strategy cannily aided by fitting harder tyres to the left-hand side of the car to counter the high number of right-handed turns on the clockwise circuit.

It was a maiden victory for both Berger and the Benetton team, who had risen from the ashes of Toleman in 1985. Senna claimed third place with Piquet heading home a Williams 4-5 - ensuring that the three-way championship squabble would go down to the wire in Australia.

1990

By 1990, there had been a shift in the calendar, with Mexico moving from its traditional end of season slot to a position in early summer to form a North American double-header with Canada. As round six of the championship there was no chance the race would prove decisive, but it did serve up one of the most iconic and hair-raising overtakes in F1 history.

Alain Prost and Gerhard Berger had swapped seats during the off-season, the tempestuous internal battle at McLaren forcing Prost to up sticks to Ferrari as teammate to Nigel Mansell. Berger went the other way to partner Senna, proving a much more amicable, albeit less competitive, teammate.

Senna had made a fast start to the season, winning three of the opening five races to open up a daunting 19-point lead over Prost, with Berger and Jean Alesi's Tyrrell Senna's chief early pursuers.

It was Berger though who made the best start to the race weekend, surprisingly taking pole from Riccardo Patrese's Williams, with Senna and Mansell on row two. Prost was a disappointing 13th after falling foul of a new push-start rule following a spin in Friday qualifying, and looked to have no chance of victory from such a lowly grid slot.

Patrese made the initial jump at the start, leading away Senna and Berger. The McLaren pair duly dispatched the Williams however and proceeded to build up a significant lead, with Nelson Piquet's Benetton leading the chase after he too passed Patrese.

Behind the leaders, Prost's progress was mesmeric, and the Ferrari, abetted by a low downforce set-up and Prost's trademark tyre management on a surface which once again was proving highly attritional, scythed through the field - taking second from Mansell with 15 laps to go.

Senna, attempting to ape Berger's 1986 strategy, was running a non-stop race, but with badly blistered tyres he was powerless to prevent Prost homing in. On lap 60, just nine tours from home, the Frenchman passed his great rival for the lead, and three laps later Senna retired - a blown tyre forcing him out of his 100th Grand Prix.

Prost coasted to a victory that ignited the championship, but behind him the battle for second place went down to the wire. Mansell, who had spun from second as he tried to catch Prost, was passed by Berger as he got back up to speed - demoting Il Leone to third.

However, Mansell's indomitable fighting spirit came to the fore as he chased Berger down. On the penultimate lap the Ferrari loomed large in the McLaren's mirrors, skittering around kinetically as the pair approached Peraltada. As Berger took a slightly defensive line Mansell moved to the outside and kept his foot flat - roaring round the outside on the high line of the banking in a move of incredible daring to seal Ferrari's first 1-2 since the 1988 Italian GP.

1991

The penultimate Mexican GP to date was one of the finest inter-team battles fought at the Autodromo Hermanes Rodriguez, with Williams teammates Riccardo Patrese and Nigel Mansell slugging it out in an intense and insular showdown.

The event is equally memorable though for a demonstration of the circuit's notorious bite, as Ayrton Senna felt the ire of Peraltada in Friday qualifying and spectacularly rolled his McLaren into the tyre barriers.

The Brazilian recovered to take third on the grid, behind an all-Williams front row headed by Patrese. Despite Senna's unprecedented fast start in winning the first four races of the season, the Williams was by this point proving its worth as the equivalent, if not the better of, the McLaren as Adrian Newey's design influence and the performance of the Renault V10 started to take hold.

Patrese suffered an awful start, dropping to fourth and seeing Mansell, Jean Alesi's Ferrari and Senna blast past. The Italian's recovery was swift though, as he quickly dispensed with Alesi and Senna before squeezing past Mansell on lap 15 after a fierce squabble as the sister Williams suffered overheating concerns.

Mansell fell back, but once his engine recovered he put on a characteristic charge, shedding the gap to Patrese and homing in on his teammate. Patrese had however enjoyed a strong start to the season t and had hitherto overshadowed Mansell - whose poor campaign had been compounded by his mysterious last-lap retirement in Canada.

Undaunted, Patrese resisted Mansell's charge to the end. Although Mansell closed up to within a couple of car lengths of his teammate there was no way through, and it was Patrese's day as the Williams cars took the chequered flag line astern.