The Mercedes team’s one-two finish carried their points total to a record 703 for the season, more than the 701 they accumulated past year when the final race was awarded double points. The Finn ended the season in fourth place in the championship behind Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel.
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Since Hamilton clinched his successive championship triumph, Rosberg has won the ensuing races in Mexico, Brazil and Abu Dhabi to complete a hat-trick of consecutive victories for the first time in his career. “It’s a great battle internally all the time, that’s what I race for and I look forward to more next year”.
“Austin was the low point of the season for me”, he said. “Since then I have come back stronger and I am excited about the way the end of the season went”.
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.
Everything was working well and things were running smoothly, auto handling well, so, it was good – but obviously not enough still to beat these two (Rosberg and Hamilton) but, you know we did our best”. “I’ll try to keep it going, the current form, starting next year”.
The win was the 16th in 19 races for Mercedes though.
Mercedes dominated the season, with Hamilton winning 10 Grand Prix and Rosberg six. Hamilton won when it mattered and that is why is the champion.
“I think being world champion sounds a lot better than winning the race, so that’s good”, the 30-year-old Briton said. “Honestly, I don’t really understand it, but I came out 11 seconds behind”.
“We could go to Melbourne tomorrow”.
Force India’s Perez came in fifth, unable to hold off Vettel at the end, while Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo and the other Force India of Nico Hulkenberg took sixth and seventh respectively.
I haven’t finished the season as strongly as I started it – but what an incredible year it’s been. In his final race for Lotus, Romain Grosjean managed ninth (the Frenchman joins America’s Haas next season) and rounding out the top ten was Red Bull man Daniil Kvyat. I agree, the drivers are very much part of the package to function and Lewis mentioned a couple of days ago he didn’t feel the auto was as good as it was before and if he says that it is something we need to consider and see whether we have data support for that or not.
“Fans worldwide were watching each practice and qualifying session with great interest to see who would get the edge”.
Hamilton finally made his second stop after 42 laps, re-joining on the harder tyres 13 seconds behind Rosberg with 13 laps remaining.
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Hamilton was comparatively slow off the mark on an opening lap that saw McLaren’s Fernando Alonso collide with Lotus’s Pastor Maldonado.
