Rosberg converted his sixth consecutive pole position into a third straight win to see out the 2015 season, while Hamilton could only get close ahead of the final pit stops. Maybe it’s just Rosberg’s will to win and finish the season in style?
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The Venezuelan retired while Alonso, who can not end McLaren’s worst-ever season fast enough, was given a drive-through penalty.
His haul of six wins for the campaign was one better than 2014 and his career tally of 14 Formula One victories leaves him two behind British great Stirling Moss as the most successful driver without a title.
“I’m feeling very happy”, beamed Rosberg, whose recent performances have belied those he gave earlier in the season, suddenly giving voice to the suggestion that he may provide a much sterner challenge in 2016.
“Austin (Texas) was very disappointing for me”. I tried as hard as I could in the first stint, keeping a decent gap to Nico, looking after the tires. He edged clear in the opening stint, eventually gaining an advantage of as much as 4.7 seconds in just 10 laps before he made the first of two scheduled stops.
“This team has done a remarkable job, so a big thank you to everyone back at the factories”.
“I’m excited about how the end of the season went and next year – it can come any moment, it could start tomorrow if it were up to me, no problem”.
“I’m sure the team is going to give us an awesome vehicle again”, Rosberg, whose Mercedes team have won 32 of the last 38 races, added. “I said to my race engineer [Peter Bonnington], we really need to sit down to try to figure out how we are going to rectify this”.
“It’s never nice to finish third but I’ll take it after previous races”.
In 2015, Hamilton won the races in Australia, China, Bahrain, Canada, the UK, Belgium, Italy, Japan and Russian Federation prior to the United States championship in October. His teammate Sebastian Vettel finished fourth after dropping as far back as 15th at one point.
“I left the team to make the call because I didn’t know what was the right one”.
“Since then a lot of time has been lost”. “If we don’t have a safety auto I will retire the vehicle”, he said.
Fifth place went to Force India’s Sergio Perez, who had to fend off a tough challenger in the form of Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo. “We see the grandstands half empty on this circuit – and half empty on most circuits”.
Things weren’t made easy for Romain Grosjean in his final outing with the Lotus squad, with the Frenchman copping a five-place grid penalty at the start for a change of gearbox.
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Daniil Kvyat took the final point in his Red Bull with Carlos Sainz in P11 for Toro Rosso followed by McLaren Honda’s Jenson Button and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas, the latter out of position after losing time when he was released into the path of JB during his first pit stop.
