There was no stopping the boys Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg of Mercedes AMG Petronas as they continued their winning streak in the 2014 Formula One US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas. With this win, Lewis Hamilton has extended his title lead and is now 24 points clear of his teammate Rosberg with three races to go. Daniel Ricciardo finished third for Red Bull Racing.
It was Hamilton's fifth straight victory, his 10th of the season and the 32nd of his career - putting him ahead of Nigel Mansell's previous British record of 31 Grand Prix wins.
A day earlier, Rosberg had claimed his ninth pole position of the season. On Sunday he led the race through the opening stint, but when the Mercedes duo made their first visit to the pit lane for medium tyres, Hamilton found more pace than his team-mate on the prime rubber and on lap 24 completed a bold move on the German into Turn 12 to steal the lead. From here onward, Hamilton kept up the pace and eventually took a a comfortable 10th win of the season.
Williams pair Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas camein fourth and fifth respectively, followed by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso who came in sixth. The rest of the top ten table was made up of Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing who came in seventh, followed by Kevin Magnussen of McLaren (8th), Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso (9th) and Pastor Maldonado of Lotus who came in tenth. Maldonado had shouldered his way to ninth on the final lap but the Venezuelan was later dropped back to tenth after picking up a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane
Unfortunately for Sahara Force India boys Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez, both had to retire early in the race. Adrian Sutil of Sauber too retired midway.
In fact, Sergio Perez got it wrong into the corner on the first lap and hit Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari and then slammed into Sutil’s Sauber car, ending the German’s race. This was truly disappointing as on the previous day Sutil had claimed the first top 10 qualifying position of the season for Sauber and put the team in a good position to claim its first points of the year.
For his reckless driving Sergio Perez was handed a seven-place grid drop for next race in Brazil after the stewards in Austin adjudged him to have caused the first-lap collision that took both him and Sauber’s Adrian Sutil out of the 2014 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
“The driver of car 11 (Perez) could not reasonably have expected to complete the manoeuvre,” read a statement issued by the stewards. “His collision with car 99 (Sutil) was reckless.”
Perez was also issued with two penalty points for the incident, which will stay on his licence for a period of 12 months.
As for the winners, Rosberg was taken by surprise at Turn 12 on the 24th lap when Hamilton came from a long way back, and drove down the inside to take the lead.
Felipe Massa almost took a podium but a slow stop on the 32nd lap dropped him behind hard-charging Daniel Ricciardo.
Jenson Button also ran over debris at the start and eventually fell back steadily to 12th as his McLaren lacked grip and pace. Kimi Raikkonen finished 13th for Ferrari, ahead of Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez and Daniil Kvyat in the second Toro Rosso.
With his win in Austin, Hamilton now has 316 points to Rosberg's 292, which effectively means he can clinch the 2014 title by finishing second to Rosberg over the remaining two Grands Prix. Ricciardo strengthened his grip on third place, on 214.
In the constructors' title race, Mercedes has 608 points to Red Bull's 363, with Williams third on 238. Ferrari is fourth with 196, 49 points ahead of McLaren.
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