His teammate Lewis Hamilton had that honour for a second time after winning the season-finale.
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“I’m not sure if I could have taken my tires to the end – some part of me wishes I had just given it a go”.
Hamilton, who won 10 times this season to Rosberg’s six, said: “It’s very easy to forget the amount of wins we did have on our side, so we’ve had a very good season”.
It was Rosberg’s third consecutive victory – a career first for the German – and his sixth of the season.
“Austin was a tough weekend and since then I have just come back a lot stronger”, said Rosberg.
Ferrri driver Kimi Raikkonen finished third on the podium in a race where wear and degradation were within limits, to the point where even Lewis Hamilton – chasing his team mate for victory – questioned on team radio whether or not he needed to make a second stop at all.
Rosberg hasn’t always made the most of his poles in recent weeks, but he did the hard bit by staying safely ahead of Hamilton.
Ferrari had a good day, despite Vettel starting in 15th after the team screwed up qualifying, with Raikkonen holding on to his third place on the grid and Vettel storming through the field to take a well-deserved fourth spot.
“We’ll give it everything over the winter and I’ll try and keep the current form into the start of next year”. “We gave Lewis all the strategy options”, Mercedes head of motorsport Toto Wolff tells BBC Sport that Hamilton was not put at a disadvantage by the team.
If Hamilton had stayed out a couple of additional laps he would have come out only three or four seconds behind the German, and would have had a chance of getting close again. It was another Mercedes one-two with Hamilton second, eight seconds behind Rosberg after the former had opted for a different race strategy.
“The tyres were still fine at the end so I honestly felt that I could potentially have taken them to the end”. Red Bull Racing’s Danile Ricciardo split the Force India’s of Perez and Nico Hulkenberg by finishing sixth.
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Behind the two silver arrows, the luckless Fernando Alonso suffered a puncture in a collision with Pastor Maldonado’s Lotus, for which he was regarded as the guilty party, and given a drive-through penalty, taken after his necessary pit-stop for repairs.
