Hamilton takes 50th GP winposted in F123 | 10 | 2016

    LEWIS HAMILTON DOMINATED the United States Grand Prix to seal the 50th win of his Formula 1 career, and reduce the gap to Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg to 26 points in the battle for the world championship.

    Hamilton, who has now won four times at Austin, and once at Indianapolis, stood on the top of the podium for the first time since Germany earlier in the season.

    Title rival Rosberg finished second, sealing Mercedes’ fifth 1-2 finish this year: Hamilton’s win was also the team’s 16th of the season, equalling their best-ever performance and with three grands prix still remaining.

    Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo finished third, while team-mate Max Verstappen was forced to retire after his car suffered a gearbox failure on lap 29.

    Bizarrely, three laps earlier the 19-year-old Dutchman mistakenly thought he had been called into the pits; as he rolled up to his ‘box, not surprisingly his crew not ready when he arrived.

    Shortly afterwards his car began making a strange sound and, despite trying to nurse his Red Bull back to the pits he was ultimately forced to park it at the side of the track.

    Hamilton-wins-USGP-2.jpg

    But unable to shift the gearbox into neutral, marshals then had to use a ‘lift-truck’ to move the car to safety. This brought out the virtual safety car allowing both Mercedes drivers what Ricciardo labelled “a free stop”.

    The Aussie had already made his second stop on lap 25, before the VSC, and as a result of Rosberg benefiting from the VSC Ricciardo dropped to third, 10s behind the German. Despite initially pushing hard, Ricciardo was unable to make further progress and the top three was essentially locked-out from there to the chequered flag.

    Another bizarre incident ended Kimi Raikkonen’s race. The former world champ was holding a comfortable fourth place when he made his third stop.

    But the Finn pulled away too quickly, yanking the right-rear tyre gun off in the process. As he exited, climbing up the hill to racetrack, he was told to ‘stop’ by his Ferrari pitcrew. Raikkonen immediately puled over, then allowed his car to roll back downhill to the pits where he simply got out, walked back to the garage, took off his helmet, put on his baseball cap and walked out the rear of the garage without uttering a word.

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    Prior to Raikkonen’s problems, Renault-bound Nico Hulkenberg retired his Force India on the opening lap after a Turn 1 collision with the Williams of Valtteri Bottas.

    The impact caused Bottas to pit his car with a slow puncture, and the Finn dropped to the back of the field, eventually finishing a distant 16th.

    Esteban Gutierrez, along with Verstappen, became the fourth retiree. The Mexican was forced out after 18 laps with what appeared to be a brake problem that led to him going off at Turn 11.

    Four-time world champ capitalised on the misfortune of his team-mate Raikkonen t bring his Ferrari home fourth, with the McLaren of Fernando Alonso fifth after passing Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz Jr on the penultimate lap of the 56.

    Felipe Massa brought his Williams home seventh, ahead of the Force India of Sergio Perez. The top 10 was rounded off by the McLaren of Jenson Button and Romain Grosjean’s Haas, on the American team’s maiden home F1 race.

    Formula 1 World Championship — United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas (Result):

    1. Lewis Hamilton GBR Mercedes-Mercedes 56 laps / 1h 38m 12.618s

    2. Nico Rosberg GER Mercedes-Mercedes +4.5s

    3. Daniel Ricciardo AUS Red Bull-TAG Heuer +19.6s

    4. Sebastian Vettel GER Ferrari-Ferrari +43.1s

    5. Fernando Alonso ESP McLaren-Honda +92.5s

    6. Carlos Sainz Jr ESP Toro Rosso-Ferrari +93.4s

    7. Felipe Massa BRZ Williams-Mercedes +1 lap

    8. Sergio Perez MEX Force India-Mercedes +1 lap

    9. Jenson Button GBR McLaren-Honda +1 lap

    10. Romain Grosjean FRA Haas-Ferrari +1 lap

    11. Kevin Magnussen DEN Renault-Renault +1 lap

    12. Daniil Kvyat RUS Toro Rosso-Ferrari +1 lap

    13. Jolyon Palmer GBR Renault-Renault +1 lap

    14. Marcus Ericsson SWE Sauber-Ferrari +1 lap

    15. Felipe Nasr BRZ Sauber-Ferrari +1 lap

    16. Valtteri Bottas FIN Williams-Mercedes +1 lap

    17. Pascal Wehrlein GER MRT-Mercedes +1 lap

    18. Esteban Ocon FRA MRT-Mercedes +2 laps

    Retired:

    Kimi Raikkonen FIN Ferrari-Ferrari 38 laps completed

    Max Verstappen NED Red Bull-TAG Heuer 28 laps completed

    Esteban Gutierrez MEX Haas-Ferrari 16 laps completed

    Nico Hulkenberg GER Force India-Mercedes 1 lap completed

    Fastest lap:

    Sebastian Vettel GER Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 39.877s

    Related: Rosberg wins again at Suzuka

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    Jim McGill

     

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