Nico Rosberg admits beating Lewis Hamilton into Turn 1 was the "most important part" of his Mexican Grand Prix victory.
Coming into this weekend Rosberg had been out-muscled by Hamilton at the first corner at two of the previous three races. Starting from pole for the fourth straight race the German immediately covered the inside for the long charge down to Turn 1 and held firm under pressure from Hamilton to keep the lead.
Asked to describe his good getaway, Rosberg said: "It's just like everything else, I keep on working on it, trying to make everything perfect. Today it worked out to keep first. That was important, maybe the most important part of the race. I'm very happy about that."
The win is Rosberg's fourth of the year but his first since June's Austrian Grand Prix and he says it was a "pretty special" return to the top step of Mexico's unique podium, which faces the former baseball stadium in the final sector.
"It's the best podium of the year, in a beautiful stadium like that. In the end, the atmosphere was unbelievable. I'm really thankful for the Mexican fans that came today, for the massive support also. It was pretty special."
Though initially on a one-stop strategy, Mercedes later switched both drivers on to a two-stop due to concerns about the prime tyres. The call was not popular with Hamilton during the race and Rosberg admits he also had his doubts about it at the time.
"At the time I didn't want to come in because I was really comfortable, I had a good gap to Lewis and it reset things a bit so I wasn't too happy with that. But I understand it was the better thing to do, especially in light of the safety car that came out because it was important to have fresher tyres at that point in time. I'm happy I was able to control the race, the only moment that was a bit difficult was the restart on cold tyres but it was okay."