Race: Hamilton back to winning ways at USGP

Lewis Hamilton’s love affair with America continued on Sunday as he won his fourth grand prix at the Circuit of the Americas while Nico Rosberg claimed the P2 he needed towards his title challenge.

Tyre strategies played their part in the race as Hamilton took the lead on his soft tyres while Daniel Ricciardo used his supersofts – the experts reckon worth a car length off the line – to get the jump on Rosberg.

The leading six drivers, all vying for a place on the podium, opted for a mix of strategies with Hamilton swapping soft for soft, Ricciardo supersofts for softs, Rosberg taking on a set of mediums, Max Verstappen softs and Kimi Raikkonen, who had started on the supersofts, putting on a set of softs. His team-mate Sebatian Vettel, who ran a long 15-lap stint on his supersoft to start with, also put on the soft tyres.

As the first round of stops played out Hamilton was four seconds ahead of Ricciardo, who in turn was two ahead of Rosberg. Verstappen overtook Raikkonen into Turn 12 – “that’s how we do it” he enthused – and Vettel was 16s off the pace.

Hamilton set about pulling away from Ricciardo, building up a lead of over nine seconds while the Aussie initially pulled away from Rosberg only to be caught by the German. In contrast Verstappen initially caught Rosberg only to drop four seconds behind him. Vettel caught Raikkonen but didn’t need to make a pass as the Finn was the first of the leading six to pit.

Softs to supers meant …

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