Hamilton gets his 10th F1 race win at Austin
Hamilton started P2 to his nearest rival and teammate Nico Rosberg who started in pole in Austin in US Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg took off cleanly preventing Hamilton from overtaking him during the race to the turn 1.
Hamilton drove a patient race showing that he has matured immensely. After the first pit stop in lap 16, Hamilton upped the pace to close the gap between him and Rosberg. Then in lap 23 he squeezed past Rosberg using DRS in the long straight before turn 12. He then controlled the race and finished 4.3 seconds ahead of Rosberg.
Lewis Hamilton thus extended his lead from 17 to 24 points over Nico Rosberg.
Daniel Ricciardo finished third by beating both the Williams drivers Felipe Massa (4th) and Vatteri Bottas (5th). Felipe Massa would be sad as he had a slow pit stop and for much of the race he was expected to be third.
Fernando Alonso of Ferrari finished 6th and his teammate Kimi Raikkonen a distant 13th with a lap down.
Sebastian Vettel who started from the pitlane due to change of engine, charged up the field and finished in 7th position. He could have done better if he would have avoided a bit of sloppy driving in lap 26 where he lost places to Romain Grosjean of Lotus and Jean-Eric Vergne of sister team Toro Rosso.
Kevin Magnussen of McLaren finished 8th. His teammate Jenson Button lost places and finished in 12th. Jenson Button was supposed to come in for tyre change in lap 27 as his tyres were degrading. McLaren had confirmed that but then suddenly they asked him not to come into pits and changed the tyres of his teammate Kevin Magnussen instead. Button became a sitting duck and three cars passed him before the next lap when he was called in for a tyre change. It seems that next year Jenson Button is not going to drive for McLaren. McLaren has not confirmed its driver lineup for next year. According to grapevine Fernando Alonso is to drive for McLaren next year. He is still negotiating his terms. Next year Honda is going to partner McLaren and supply engine to the team. Though Jenson Button has earlier driven for BAR-Honda team and has a high profile Japanese model girlfriend and is highly popular in Japan, he seems to be out of favour with the team. It seems McLaren will have Fernando Alonso and Kevin Magnussen next year.
Jean-Eric Vergne was penalised for a contact with Romain Grosjean of Lotus and hence instead of 9th position his final classification was 10th as 5 seconds penalty was added to his tally. He got 1 point for the 10th position. Romain Grosjean's teammate Pastor Maldonado of Lotus benefitted and became 9th and got 2 points.
Romain Grosjean of Lotus finished in 11th. Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber finished in 14th followed by Daniil Kvyat of Toro Rosso.
Nico Hulkenberg of Force India had an engine problem in lap 16 and retired. The other Force India car of Sergio Perez was embroiled in an accident with Adrian Sutil of Sauber in the first lap and both retired.
