How Hamilton won but Rosberg didn't really lose

This was exactly the race Lewis Hamilton desperately needed after the travails of his past few weeks in Formula 1.

The double sucker punch of losing the Malaysian Grand Prix to sudden engine failure, then tying himself in knots with bad set-up and a poor start as title rival Nico Rosberg waltzed away with proceedings in Japan, left Hamilton's championship ambitions looking decidedly shaky.

But those ambitions are no longer his alone to control. He came to the United States, a country he loves, knowing full well that Rosberg could finish second to him in every remaining race and still win the championship. Even slipping to third in one of them would still allow Rosberg to get the job done.

A 33-point deficit is a mountain to climb even for a driver of Hamilton's obvious calibre. What he really needs is technical misfortune to befall Rosberg, to reset the balance of the battle.

Beyond relying on pure dumb luck, all Hamilton can do is win every remaining race and hope some of his other rivals can somehow steal precious points away from Rosberg.

For much of the US Grand Prix it looked as if Red Bull might do Hamilton just that favour, but ultimately an errant pit visit and subsequent gearbox failure for Max Verstappen inadvertently cost team-mate Daniel Ricciardo a chance of finishing second in this race, helping Rosberg edge a small step closer to F1's ultimate prize.

Practice running suggested Red Bull looked in good shape around Austin, certainly fast enough in race trim to apply serious pressure to Mercedes, something Red Bull has started to do consistently since September's race in Singapore.

But Mercedes still has that crucial edge in qualifying trim, Hamilton and Rosberg able to extract extra juice from their power units that Renault simply cannot give Ricciardo and Verstappen.

So Saturday's result was entirely predictable - Mercedes one-two on the grid, with Red Bull locking out the second row.

But strategic variation offered hope. Ricciardo progressed through Q2 on the fastest super-soft tyre, while the Mercedes pair and his own team-mate opted to begin the race on the soft compound.

Ricciardo's hopes of carrying the fight to Mercedes rested on making a demon start from third on the grid, and making full use of some "friendly grip" off the line.

His getaway was decent enough, but not stellar. He appeared to get the benefit of that softer rubber only after the initial launch from the grid, which allowed him to dive inside Rosberg at Turn 1, as the championship leader got bottled up behind poleman Hamilton.

"The start went nearly to plan," explained Ricciardo. "The plan was to try and get both Mercedes. We at least got Nico, which was positive."

Any hope of challenging Hamilton for victory rested on that plan coming to full fruition, but with the leading Mercedes away and gone Ricciardo at least put himself in the driving seat to finish second in this race.

Rosberg had a chance to duke it out with Ricciardo on the inside line heading into Turn 2, but thought better of it, perhaps wary of taking too many risks given the championship situation.

"I got away really well," said Rosberg. "Not quite enough to give it a go down the inside - Lewis would just have closed [the door], so no point in trying, I just went round the outside.

"All was looking good, I just struggled for a bit of grip out of the corner and Daniel had that extra. We knew that was going to be a risk with that super-soft."

Ricciardo stayed within three seconds of Hamilton before pitting for the first time on lap eight of 56. When the first stops of all the leading cars had shaken out at the end of lap 15, Hamilton led Ricciardo by 4.259 seconds, with Rosberg a couple of seconds further back and Verstappen right behind.

Verstappen looked pretty racey at this stage. He had to work hard to cement fourth after dropping behind Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari at the start and defending hard from Sebastian Vettel on the first lap

Like Hamilton and Ricciardo, Verstappen fitted the soft tyre at his first stop, while Rosberg went for the medium. Verstappen overtook Raikkonen with the aid of DRS at Turn 12 on lap 13, and three laps later closed to within DRS range of Rosberg.

VERSTAPPEN'S CHASE OF ROSBERG IN STINT TWO

At this point Red Bull reminded Verstappen to make sure he could make his tyres last to the end of the stint. His response? "I'm not here to finish fourth". But with no obvious way through on track, he did relent - protecting his tyres in hope of jumping Rosberg at the second round of stops.

This is where the race went totally awry for Red Bull.

Ricciardo made his second stop on lap 25, fitting mediums with the intention of racing on to the finish. Verstappen dived for the pits on the following lap, but without his Red Bull crew ready to receive him.

"He thought he heard a call the previous lap but got himself confused," explained Red Bull boss Christian Horner. "He hadn't heard anything on that lap [he came in]. He had been told to push to close the gap to Nico, because we were going to try and undercut him.

"It's something totally unusual, it sort of came from nowhere. He just arrived in the pitlane and said 'I'm in the pitlane!' We're not very good at fitting tyres when we know he's not coming in..."

Horner reckoned without that mistake Verstappen would have jumped Rosberg and forced the points leaders to pass both Red Bulls on track in the closing stages in order to finish second.

But as it was Verstappen then suffered a gearbox failure coming down the back straight on lap 29. Verstappen reported a sensation of something "hitting the engine" as he attempted to crawl back to the pits.

He eventually gave up and pulled off the circuit on the outside of Turn 17, and officials deployed the virtual safety car while marshals craned the Red Bull away.

Ricciardo felt his hopes of finishing second bit the dust because of this. Rosberg took advantage of the VSC period to make his second stop 'for free' on lap 31, and rejoined the race with just under 3.5s in hand over the Red Bull.

At the point the VSC was deployed, Ricciardo had closed to within 15s of Rosberg, easily close enough to gain track position had Rosberg pitted under normal circumstances.

"I think we lost 10 seconds," Ricciardo estimated. "I believe after the pitstops we would have had about five seconds on him. After the virtual safety car he had close to five seconds on me, so that was frustrating.

"It just would have been interesting, even if he caught me at the end, just to at least have a fight. After the virtual safety car the race became a bit unexciting. I guess without that it would have made it a bit more spicy at the end."

Rosberg would have been further ahead after that stop, but for meeting Pascal Wehrlein's slow Manor at the pit exit. Rosberg attempted a pass, but backed out before overtaking the slower car, realising the potential disaster of overtaking that car under VSC conditions outside of the pitlane.

"I went for the pass because until the line you can go for it," he said. "Under VSC, all the way to the pit exit line you can go for the pass. I lost three seconds on the VSC restart due to Pascal, as I was stuck behind him and he started too slow."

ROSBERG ESCAPES FROM RICCIARDO IN FINAL STINT

Ricciardo's race engineer, Simon Rennie, felt his driver "would and should have beaten" Rosberg because "he didn't have any scary pace". Certainly Rosberg didn't blitz the Red Bull over the remainder of the grand prix, but by that stage this was also a moot point, as Rosberg had stolen superior track position away from Ricciardo.

The Red Bull implosion triggered by Verstappen made Rosberg's life much easier than it might have otherwise been, as the championship leader drove on to a comfortable second placed finish behind his team-mate, minimising the points loss to his main rival.

HAMILTON'S ADVANTAGE OVER ROSBERG IN FINAL STINT

Rosberg closed to within five seconds of Hamilton over the final part of the race, but by this stage Hamilton was just protecting his Mercedes engine from undue stress.

"All I could think about was the car making it to the end - nothing else - for the whole race," Hamilton said. "It was the longest afternoon I could remember in my whole career. Every single lap I was thinking something might happen.

"You are feeling all the vibrations through the engine from the RPM, through the rev range, through the gear shifts.

"I was trying to do fewer gear shifts though a lap, to make the gearbox go longer than perhaps it wants to. The same with the engine, I wasn't doing 100% throttle down the straight, I was pulling it back to 90%, trying not to stretch it.

"When I got on that back straight I was petrified. It [the engine] has a beautiful ring to it, but it had a beautiful ring in Malaysia. I was haunted by that, dreading that [failure] would happen, so I am so grateful it didn't.

"I was just trying to do everything to nurse it home. It wasn't until I got over the line that I was like 'thank you, I am so happy!' rubbing the cockpit - 'thank you for getting me there'."

Hamilton got everything right this weekend. He nailed pole position; the hard work he put in practicing starts since the last race paid off; and he controlled the race expertly from the front to record the 50th win of his glittering grand prix career.

But Hamilton getting everything right is no longer enough to win him a fourth world championship. He needs outside help: from the higher power he mentioned in Malaysia; from the reliability gremlins that have continued to strike his car and not Rosberg's; from Red Bull.

Ricciardo was close, but not quite close enough here, and isn't expecting to be a serious threat again until maybe the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

"On paper I would say Abu Dhabi is probably where I fancy my best chances, it's been a strong circuit for me and us as a team have normally been pretty good there," he said. "We'll keep trying, keep doing what we can. Obviously they're hard to beat, but maybe next time the virtual safety car will help us out. We'll see."

In the meantime all Hamilton can do is execute the remaining races perfectly and hope for the best.

"History has shown lots of ups and downs," Hamilton reflected. "There have been times where it is dead certain already, and there have been times where it has flipped.

"So that is exactly why I have got to keep my head down and keep trying to do the job I did this weekend, which I seriously believe I can do.

"So far it has been 100% reliable on Nico's side. But often in seasons there can be 100% reliability on a car. Will that be the case on Nico's? Only time will tell.

"I can't get fixated on that. I have got to focus on mine, and I am hoping for these last three races I will have 100% reliability - that would be a real breath of fresh air.

"I can't control what has happened to this point. It has already been set. All we can do is leave this season knowing I did everything with a full heart."

Rosberg now leads Hamilton by 26 points with a maximum 75 left to win. A first world title is getting tantalisingly close to reality.

Hamilton is running seriously short of time to make this story end in a different way.