Nico Rosberg insists the stewards were right not to penalise his Mercedes teammate and title rival Lewis Hamilton at the Mexican Grand Prix.

Hamilton, who started on pole, drove straight across the grass at the first bend of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez after locking his wheels, and re-emerged further down the track still ahead of the chasing pack. Both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen said Hamilton should have been punished but the stewards decided against looking at the incident, deeming he had not gained an advantage, something the world champion himself argued after the race.

Initially watching the footage of the incident as he was being interviewed by Sky Sports, Rosberg said, "How does he get away with that?" in an apparent reference to Hamilton.

However, when he was then asked if he thought his teammate should have been given a penalty, Rosberg said: "Definitely not. Please do not put words into my mouth. That was not very fair of you.

"First of all, Lewis did a better job this weekend. Since you did put words in my mouth, I will tag on to where you left off, which is that he went into the corner first and came out first, so that's OK.

"Apart from that, for me, the race, there was a lot going on of course, quite eventful. But in the end, second place, I have to live with that. Lewis was quicker so he deserves the win, and for me, second place was the best I could do."

The stewards did, however, look into a similar incident after Rosberg went across a corner later on when Verstappen tried to pass him on the inside. Technically Rosberg gained an advantage because he cut a corner short and emerged in second ahead of Verstappen.

"It was quite a big thump and I thought my car would have been falling to bits," said Rosberg. "So I'm quite pleased that my car held on. You can see he locked up and ran me off the road. So definitely that was too much. And after that I managed to stay in front."

Rosberg was involved in a similar clash with Kimi Raikkonen at the Malaysian Grand Prix, when he barged past Raikkonen while the pair diced for position late in the race, bumping into the side of the Finn's car and removing part of his front wing.

The German was handed a 10-second time penalty for the incident -- something Mercedes boss Toto Wolff labelled "complete nonsense" -- but was able to open enough of a gap over Raikkonen in the final laps to claim third position.

"You can't compare situations," Rosberg added. "It's not for me to judge. Let's leave them to judge the situations and decide when something needs action or not."