It was his 14th career win and sixth of the season.
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Stewart, 76, was at the Austin race to congratulate Hamilton, who has dominated the sport this season, on his achievement. “Because we really master-managed it, I controlled the pace through the race and managed my tires and used them optimally and pushed all the way through to the end, so had good pace there with tires, that’s for sure and had a lot more laps on them than Lewis’s so very pleased with that, definitely”.
Eventually, he finished over 8 seconds behind the German.
Alonso was handed a drive-through penalty and spent the remainder of the race plodding around in 17th.
Rosberg started well from pole and was always in charge of a tactical race, even after Hamilton tried to extend his second stint so that he would have the advantage of fresher soft-compound Pirelli tyres in the losing stages. His teammate Sebastian Vettel finished fourth after dropping as far back as 15th at one point.
But the opinion from the garage was that it would be too much of a risk and a reluctant Hamilton came in for the change and in doing so, effectively surrendering the victory. He said that the International Automobile Federation (FIA) had missed an opportunity to demonstrate justice and good sense.
“Obviously I would have loved to get on the podium again, but I think today’s result was the best possible one for us as a team”, Vettel said. The Briton pitted 10 laps after Rosberg to extract the maximum out of his stint, but claims his team gave him no choice over tyres.
He added, rather wistfully: “In hindsight, once Nico pitted I probably should have backed off a little bit, and I’d have made those tyres go a lot longer”.
The season-ending race was otherwise notable for a first lap crash tangle which eliminated Lotus driver Pastor Maldonando and saw Fernando Alonso forced to get a new front wing on his McLaren-Honda.
Daniel Ricciardo was sixth for Red Bull ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in the second Force India, Felipe Massa of Williams, Romain Grosjean who marked his last race for Lotus with a surge to ninth and Daniil Kvyat in the second Red Bull.
While Hamilton spoke as if he had been on holiday since clinching the title in Austin last month, Rosberg’s end-of-season upturn in fortunes has him already looking forward to next year.
Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen and McLaren’s Jenson Button ensured the action went right to wire when, with the race petering out into predictability, the pair almost took each other out in a battle for lower order positions.
“I’m happy the season is over so we can all enjoy it. We’ve shown Mercedes is the best team in the world”, he said.
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Hamilton thus ended his year with 381 points to Rosberg’s 322, with Vettel third on 278 and Raikkonen on 150.
