Hamilton proud to hold British record

Nico Rosberg might have felt he had the upper hand over Lewis Hamilton going into Sunday, but he was proved emphatically wrong.

The two Silver Arrows cars have proved dominant throughout the season and when it’s such a tight head-to-head battle, fine margins are the difference between winning and losing.

On Saturday in qualifying, Hamilton had a braking issue on his front left, the temperatures were wrong and as Hamilton revealed later, he was turning too soon which was forcing him to lock up.

That was the difference between Hamilton taking pole position on the grid and handing the advantage to Rosberg.

The German would have hoped that this would be the start of a swing in momentum.

Rosberg simply had to stop Hamilton taking a fifth consecutive race victory and during the early part of the race he had everything under control.

But then at the first pit-stop, Hamilton made a small front wing adjustment. This swung the performance in Hamilton’s favour and the championship leader set about catching and passing Rosberg.

It took one chance and the lead changed hands never to be relinquished from Hamilton’s grasp.

‘What an incredible place this is to go racing. We have such great support here and I have to say a massive thanks to the fans who have been awesome all weekend. I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to be out front here. It’s a very special feeling to have such an amazing car, an amazing team and to be on this incredible run. Hamilton told formula1.com.

We managed to correct the problems from qualifying today which was great and I pushed as hard as I could. For the overtake, I just stayed as close as possible to Nico and waited for the moment to be just close enough to throw it up the inside. This is a good circuit to be able to follow another car but it’s still not easy. You have to judge the risk in these situations but I felt confident I could pull it off. Once I got past Nico, it was just about controlling the race.

The United States Grand Prix win was Hamilton’s 32nd career win, beating Nigel Mansell to become the most victorious British racer of all-time.

‘I’m very, very proud to now hold the record for the most Formula One wins for a British driver. I have to say, though, it’s all thanks to the team and the car we have this year that I’ve been able to reach that landmark so quickly. Ten wins in a season [so far] is just… well, wow!’ Hamilton concluded.

The victory for Hamilton also extends his Formula One World Championship lead to 24 points.

It also means that the title chase is set to go to the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi as even a victory for Hamilton and a retirement for Rosberg would only extend Hamilton’s lead to 49 points, with 50 available in the double-points shoot-out in the season finale.