23/10/2016
NEWS STORY
Lewis Hamilton today took his 50th career victory - his 3rd in a row at the Circuit of the Americas and 7th of the 2016 season so far. Nico Rosberg completed a 5th Silver Arrows 1-2 of the season in P2. Nico Rosberg (331) leads the Drivers' Championship by 26 points from Lewis Hamilton (305) in P2.
Mercedes AMG Petronas (636) lead Red Bull (400) by 236 points in the Constructors' Championship.
Lewis Hamilton: I'm delighted to claim my 50th career victory today, it's been a long time coming, but most importantly it was great to have a solid race weekend. This race has always gone extremely well for me, but still, it was a massive relief when I crossed the line given my reliability issues in recent rounds. I was 100% clear on my start and I knew it was going to turn out that way. It was a nice feeling, especially after so many ups and downs, and I was able to control the race from there. It's been great to be back here in Austin and the response from the fans has been incredible. The aim is to continue this form next week and I can't wait to continue the Championship battle in Mexico.
Nico Rosberg: I had a good start and tried to overtake Lewis on the outside but ultimately it meant Daniel Ricciardo had a better line out of turn 1 and was able to capitalise on this. From there it was hard to overtake the Red Bull but our altered strategy paid off. We ran the medium tyre and that gave us plenty of options, especially when the virtual safety car came into play. The medium tyre showed some really strong pace and the car felt great which meant towards the end I was closing in on Lewis, but it was too late. He did a better job this weekend and deserved the win and I look forward to continuing our battle in Mexico.
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: This race in Austin in becoming real Lewis Hamilton country: three wins in a row, and four in total, after a perfect and really controlled drive today. We have had some pretty dramatic races in recent weeks, including what happened in Malaysia of course, so it was good to have a drama-free afternoon today and see Lewis put in such a strong drive. As for Nico, he's in a tricky situation right now because he knows he cannot afford to have a DNF. Probably that was part of why he lost position in Turn One, but then he was looking good to get back to P2 with an offset tyre strategy before the VSC meant we could pit and gain the position in that way. It was also great to see our pace today: things looked much closer with Red Bull in practice but our engineering team did some good work on Friday night and we had a nice advantage in qualifying and the race. We move on to Mexico now and our focus, like this weekend, will be on providing the boys with two reliable cars so that they can continue this championship battle in the right sportsmanlike way, between them out on track.
Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical): It's a terrific result at what's becoming a really special race on the calendar and Lewis Hamilton is proving to be a popular winner here. It was a really well controlled race from Lewis, he didn't put a single foot wrong and keeps the drivers' championship battle alive going into the final three races. For Nico it was slightly more difficult, losing position to Daniel Riccardo at the start. We had strategic opportunities to move him back up to second but it was made a lot easier by the virtual safety car at a very convenient moment: good for us although it denied the fans an exciting battle. That's another fantastic job from the team here in Austin and back in Brackley, Brixworth and Stuttgart and we look forward to Mexico in just a few days, where yet more great racing is to be expected.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Austin, here.